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 go to the previous Part Thirteen.
Chapter 40: The Trail Goes Cold
The road led us on, just as it had a few weeks ago. I still had to remind myself it had only been a few weeks ago that we passed through here before. So much had happened since then that it was hard to imagine. As we walked, I tried not to feel like we were making a mistake by abandoning the mansion. Going in circles worried me. I definitely did not want to wind up in Mur’s palace ever again. By noon, I’d changed my mind. Maybe Mur’s palace would be okay, but only if Mur died and his cook and grocer stayed on to work with us.
We talked a bit about where we’d come from. Jessica and Robin had been taken only a couple of days after us, but from west Texas rather than Ohio, like Brad and I. Amber talked about life in the 1980s, but comparing VCRs to DVD players and the internet to text-only computers was kind of difficult to explain, so the conversation kind of petered out after a while.
Brad pointed out the section of bamboo-like woods where Mr. Nobody had ambushed us. “Like from the Clue board game?” Jessica asked, so we had to explain the whole dream sequence we’d had and how he’d been invisible and ambushed us. We didn’t go off the road until we’d passed that section of woods.
Finally, though, as the sun dipped towards the horizon, we walked a few yards out from the road to settle in for the night. After laying out blankets, we divided up the watch amongst the five of us, ate a quite bite of the food we’d stolen, and tried to get to sleep.
My sleep was restless. I’m not sure why, but I kept waking up from dreams I couldn’t remember. Finally, I gave up and relieved Robin, who was on second watch. I sat, watching everyone sleep, wondering if Mr. Nobody was haunting my dreams or just nerves. It was weird. For once, I knew where we were going and exactly what we should face. But I was still terrified of what lay ahead. Eventually, my nerves settled and I began to get drowsy. Before sleep could overcome me, I woke up Amber to take fourth watch. I sat with her for a bit, silently enjoying her company. At some point, I nodded off in her arms.
I awoke some time before dawn, shivering. I stood up and stamped my feet, but they were numb with cold. I could see my breath in the false dawn. This was the first truly cold morning I’d experienced in my time here. For once, my goosebumps weren’t a result of terror. “Morning,” Brad whispered. I jumped. I guess maybe I was more on edge than I wanted to admit. With a mock glare at him, I wandered off to pee behind a tree. By the time I returned, everyone was awake and shivering.
“God, I’m fr-freezing!” Jessica said as she handed out food from her pack. Her top was way too thin for the sudden chill.
“How did it get so cold so fast?” Robin asked. I wondered that too. Fighting against numb fingers, we packed up and headed towards the road.
A few yards from where we’d slept, the air was suddenly warm again. “What the fuck?” Brad said as he crossed into the warm zone. He stopped, took two steps backwards, and he was again in air so cold we could see his breath fog. He stepped forward again and was back in the warm air.
“Okay. So that’s completely insane,” I said, watching him go back and forth again.
“Maybe a fluke of this place? Or maybe something new and wonderful is targeting us?” Amber suggested.
“If it happens again tonight, we’re being targeted,” I said. “Though I have no idea how to fight it.” I sighed. “We should make it into the city today. We can find shelter at least; maybe some place has a working fireplace or stove.” With that, we started walking. Soon, we crossed from wilderness into corn fields. We all took the time to gather corn. It gave me a weird sense of déjà vu to again be robbing corn at the side of the road.
A few times over the course of the day, we walked through intensely cold spots. Each time, the air seemed colder than the last. Each time, we hurried forward through the spots. It seemed like each cold zone was maybe fifteen to twenty yards deep.
“You think Mur is trying to slow us down?” Brad said after the third such spot.
“Possibly?” I said. “Not sure how, though.” If he was trying to slow us down, it didn’t work. If anything, it made us move faster. We didn’t want to be outdoors when night fell. We didn’t want to waste time that could better be used to find a shelter and build a fire. As the day wore on, fatigue settled in and we stopped talking. We were walking too fast. I knew that, but I didn’t like the cold spots and what they might mean. So we tired ourselves out, rushing to make it to the City of the Dead.
It was early evening when we passed from fields to the city’s first buildings. The sun was low, but still above the rooftops. We began checking each building, looking for a fireplace or wood stove and a door we could secure. Even though we split up into two groups, it took us half an hour to find such a place. It wasn’t much, just a small shopfront with an upstairs apartment.
The apartment had two rooms. The first room had several chairs and a small fireplace. The door to the stairwell had a bar we could use to lock the door. The only other door led to some sort of simple kitchen with a stove and various pots, pans, and such.
We grabbed a few pots and went out. It took us a few minutes, but we found a working fountain. There, we drank our fill, washed the pots as best we could with no soap, and filled them with water. We took those back to the kitchen, trying not to spill too much. Then we raided the downstairs shop. There was no merchandise left. But there was wooden shelving and a stool.
It took us little effort to break up the wood. It wouldn’t last long, but it was better than nothing for providing heat. Darkness had settled over the city by the time we set the bar into the door’s brackets, locking ourselves in for the night. Amber and I boiled ten ears of corn over the stove. It used up half our wood, but the fresh corn tasted delicious. It needed butter and salt, but it was good to have something fresh for a change.
As Brad cleaned up from the meal, the rest of us spread our meager blankets out in the living room. Sadly, we had found no other blankets anywhere. We got as comfortable as we could there on the floor with the meager blankets and using our packs as pillows.
Sometime during the night, I woke up cold. Not as cold as the night before, but enough that I couldn’t get back to sleep. I rolled over on my side and sighed. Brad slid closer, spooning against me. I was grateful for his warmth. He put an arm around me and was almost immediately asleep again. I heard Amber rustling from behind Brad. Her hand touched my arm as she spooned Brad. I smiled at the mental picture of the three of us, trying to stay warm. I heard Jessica roll over, somewhere in front of me. She sighed softly in the dark. I reached out and gently touched her. She flinched then rolled over to face me. “Cold?” I whispered as quietly as I could.
“Yeah,” she answered in the same whisper.
“Slide over here,” I whispered.
She quietly slid in next to me, felt around to see how I was laying, and arranged herself so I could spoon her. A few seconds later, I heard Robin slide up next to Jessica. I tried not to think about how personal we’d just gotten. This was just for body heat, I reminded myself. With everyone crammed in together, I was warm again. It didn’t take me long to drift back asleep.
Later, I awoke with a start. Light was coming in through the small windows, enough to know it was after sunrise. I could see my breath rising. I quietly got up out of bed and went to the window. I huddled there, shivering, watching the ghost people walk down the street in the early morning fog. After a moment, Jessica and then Robin joined me. “Oh, wow!” Robin said quietly. “And they’re really ghosts?”
“I guess so? Up close, they have no facial features, like something from a dream. And we’ve seen something run right through them, without them even noticing,” I said, shivering at both the memory and the cold.
After a minute, I headed into the kitchen and started a fire with the remaining wood. I set a pot of water on the stove and heated it while I shucked some corn. Robin came in and helped. As the water boiled, I set the ears of corn in. Robin went through the cupboards and brought down a small box. She sniffed it, then smiled. There was only a little water left, but she put it on the stove next to the corn. “I found tea!” she said.
We had a breakfast of corn on the cob and tea. The tea was a bit stale, but warm and better than plain water.
“Do we clean up or?” Brad asked after we’d eaten.
“Leave it,” Amber said. “The original owners won’t mind, I don’t think.”
Brad unblocked the door, opened it and started down the stairs as we packed up the blankets. He gasped and called out, “Hey, guys?”
We rushed out on the landing. Brad was pointing at a small window that looked out on the street. There, we saw a spider web, visible because it was coated in frost. Just above it, at the top of the window, sat a spider. Its body was at least an inch wide and maybe a little longer. It was black but had a blood-red smear on its back. At first, I thought it was a large black widow. But then it moved and I saw that the smear was a triangle. I wasn’t sure, but felt confident the center of the triangle held an eye.
A chill, unrelated to the cold, ran down my back. “Fuck you,” I said angrily as I shoved the tip of my staff at the spider. The thing dodged to the side, then scurried onto the staff. As it shot straight up the wood towards me, I dropped the staff with a truly mature, totally-one-hundred-percent-in-control, scream. The spider shot across the floor and stopped, perhaps two feet away from me. It raised two of its legs and waved them at me. Before I could take this in, Brad’s hammer smashed the thing with a wet crunching sound.
Almost immediately, the air felt warmer. The frost on the spider web began to glisten as it melted. I picked up the staff and we headed out to the street. The unsettling feeling of watching the silent ghosts walk by was far less disturbing than the spider had been.
“Seen any other spiders since we got here?” Brad asked quietly as we stood there.
“No. No I have not,” Amber said. Another chill shot down my back as we stood on the curb, watching the ghosts walk by.
Chapter 41: Mur’s Regards
We walked slowly through town, trying not to mess with the ghost walkers. I didn’t think they would hurt us, but I wasn’t particularly eager to take that chance. As the sun cleared the fog, the ghosts thinned out, just as I remembered. The city remained eerily beautiful and far too quiet. We eventually found the open plaza full of food that Amber had found previously. It looked exactly as it had when we were last here.
“Holy crap! Where did all of this come from?” Jessica said in awe at the hundreds of boxes.
“No clue,” Amber said with a shrug. “None of the crates seemed to have writing on them.”
For the next half hour or so, we opened boxes and selected food to take back with us. Some of the crates had food that smelled or looked terrible, so we set those aside, but most seemed to hold home-canned fruits and vegetables. I missed bacon, but this stash was better than anything we’d found outside Mur’s palace. Going through those boxes of food was like Christmas morning.
Around noon, we stopped for a break. There was a fountain not too far away. We drank our fill from that, and had a leisurely lunch of canned goods. “Where did you stay, Amber? Before, I mean.” Brad asked as we ate.
She looked around and pointed to one of the three story buildings circling the fountain. “There. The door can be barred. It has a decent kitchen and an actual bedroom. No mattresses, though.”
“Should we stay there tonight?” I asked.
“We’ll need firewood,” Amber said thoughtfully. “But otherwise, yeah. We can stay there and head back in the morning.”
“I wish we could find a delivery van to haul more food back,” Robin said. I nodded with a sigh.
“Brad? Why don’t you and Amber see if we can scrounge firewood from the neighboring buildings while the rest of us go back to sorting food?” I suggested.
“Back to work so soon?” Robin said with a hint of a whiny tone. Jessica gave her a glare. “Sorry, I know.”
With reluctance, we got back to work. We had set aside a stash that would be at the limits of what we could each carry. Going back would suck. I dreaded the hike, but dreaded the tunnel even more. Still, the house was low on food; we had to do something.
After a few hours, Brad and Amber rejoined us. “We have enough wood up there to keep the fire going overnight, no problem.”
I nodded. “That’s great. Help us get these packs to the store?” Together, we carried our packs to the store, where we could keep an eye on them. As I’d feared, they were heavy enough that it might take us an extra day to get back. I could tell my shoulders were going to hate me by the time we quit walking. We then went back and gathered enough food for dinner and breakfast. Then we filled up pots and pans with water, so we’d have plenty of that, too.
It was exhausting. We were tired and the day was nearly done by this point. Still, we had enough food to go at least a week, maybe more. I sighed, unhappy that it took us four or five days to gather six to ten days’ worth of food. It was a crazy amount of work.
“We need to build wagons. That might let us travel with more food and less effort,” I said.
“What, like little red wagons?” Robin said. Her voice was sarcastic.
“No, more like something wheelbarrow-sized at least. Fill it as full as we can. Travel with two big wagons, maybe three? That way we can rotate who’s pulling and who’s just walking.”
“Can we do that?” Amber said.
“I don’t know. It depends on whether we can find tools. Wheels and axles will be the hard part,” Brad said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“Worth trying?” I asked. “I mean, versus packing these things for two or three days?” I lifted the home-made backpack for emphasis.
“We still have to get them through that tunnel,” Jessica reminded us.
“Three wagons.” Robin suggested. “Two as big as we can make them and still move them on our own. The third we make smaller. We get some rope, lower that third one to the bottom of the tunnel shaft. Then we can lower supplies and use the wagon. Should make it easier. A little.”
I smiled at Brad. “Smart. With three wagons, we can keep rotating people so we don’t get as tired.”
We started making dinner and discussing the size and design of the wagons. After dinner, as the sun began to dip below the city’s low skyline, we all took a quick minute to go out to the fountain, one by one, and rinse ourselves off. It was cold and there was no soap. But it was good to get the day’s sweat and grime off.
Jessica and Robin quietly offered to sleep in the second floor living room, giving us the third floor bedroom — and some privacy. I was grateful for that. After we’d said our good-nights and headed upstairs, I quickly found that Amber and Brad were grateful as well.
I awoke with a start. Lying there in the darkness, it took me a few seconds to remember where I was. City of the Dead, my mind eventually remembered. Right. But then why was I in a bed, instead of in a pallet on the floor?
The distinct whump of a car door closing caught my attention. What? I looked around, trying to figure out what was happening. A faint light shown in through the window, revealing a bedroom. It took me a long moment to recognize I was in my parent’s bed. I hadn’t slept in their bed since I was three or four.
I got up and padded across the carpet to the window. Down below, I saw a white pickup truck at the top of our driveway. Dad’s truck. The lights where on in the truck, but I couldn’t see who was in it from this angle. Dad? I looked around the room. Brad and Amber were nowhere to be seen. Where were they?
Downstairs, I opened the front door and headed out to the truck. The headlight’s glare blinded me. I held up an arm to shield my eyes and walked around to the truck. From the passenger door, I could see it was empty, but the keys were in the ignition. I walked around to the driver’s side and got in. as I reached for the keys to take them out, I heard a shoe scuff the pavement. I slammed the door shut and fumbled for the lock button. Someone was thumping the side of the truck.
In the side mirror, I saw a man dressed in black. His face was a white mask. He was tall, too tall. Something was wrong. The man’s huge eyes blinked. He wasn’t wearing a mask. He was a white-skinned thing with eyes too wide and too big and too far apart. I couldn’t see a mouth in the mirror as he bent down to peer in at me.
With a scream, I fumbled for the keys. I started the engine and hit the gas. The engine roared, but the truck didn’t move. I looked around in confusion for a second, only then noticing that I was naked. Of course I was naked; why wouldn’t I be?
I slammed the column shifter from park to reverse. The white-faced thing was still staring at me. I hit the gas. Too hard; the truck lurched back, throwing me forward. The white-faced thing slammed the side of the truck as it passed him. I heard the front tire explode as the steering wheel jerked in my hand. Then it jumped onto the hood.
“Fuck!” I yelled. But I kept my foot on the gas, even as I heard the grinding sound of the wheel running on pavement. Dad was going to kill me. The white-faced thing was on the hood, staring at me. He slammed a hand down against the hood. The whole truck shook. He did it again, and his hand passed through the steel of the hood.
I slammed the brakes, but he just rocked a little as his arm moved about under the hood. Then the engine died and he pulled his arm out, clutching some hose or cable or something. I slammed my hands into the steering wheel and screamed in anger. The man dropped the cable and reached forward with both hands. He ripped the windshield completely off of the truck. I screamed again. “Mur sends his regards,” the man said, though he had no mouth. “He says you should know you’ll never have a good night’s sleep again.” His voice sounded so happy, like a clown in a kid’s TV show.
He reached towards me. His hand touched my shoulder and I screamed. He shook me. I screamed and suddenly I was on the floor of the stone building, Amber and Brad shaking me, trying to snap me out of the nightmare. I clutched them both, sobbing. It took me several minutes to calm down enough to describe the nightmare. They both held on tight until I was done talking and crying.
“Think it was really him?” Amber asked with concern.
“I don’t know. God, I hope not.” I said.
We heard a scream from downstairs. Without thinking, we all ran down to the main floor. We rushed in, weapons in hand, to find Jessica and Robin hugging each other. They looked up in surprise, then looked away with embarrassment. That’s when we realized we had rushed down without thinking about getting dressed; we were still naked. Oops!
“Sorry!” I said, blushing a bright red as we went back upstairs. After we got dressed, we came downstairs again. Robin explained that she’d had a horrible nightmare. She described a man in black with a white face who promised she’d never sleep well again.
I looked at Amber. “Guess that answers your question,” I said, then explained my dream to Jessica and Robin. We sat there, quietly, mulling the two dreams over in our minds.
“Do you guys always sleep naked together?”
“Robin!” Jessica said in shock. “That’s none of our business!”
I blushed as Amber said, “Not always. But whenever we can? Yes. Yes we do!” Her brazenness made me blush even more.
“But, all three of you?” Robin asked, dodging a punch to the shoulder from her sister.
“I’ve loved Brad since before we came here,” I said, glancing at him. “I don’t think I’d really realized it at the time, but… I did.” Brad took my hand and I squeezed it. “We met Amber here, in this city. And it took a while, but yeah. She’s pretty fucking awesome. We keep each other alive, literally and figuratively.” I reached out, took her hand. “So yeah, I love her too.”
“They saved my life. I mean that. That guy literally had me in the air with a flaying knife. They are the reason I’m here and not walking the street with the other morning ghosts. Hell yeah, I love them both,” Amber said, squeezing my hand. Emotion made her voice deeper than usual.
Brad looked at me, then Amber. “It’s weird. I know. But somehow it works for us. I love them both, they love me both.”
“Oh,” Robin said, looking down. “I see.”
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. Just. You came through with your lover and found another lover and,” she sighed. “And I’m being stupid.”
“And you came through with your best friend. And you love her, but you’re horny and lonely at the same time,” Jessica said.
Robin sputtered, but didn’t deny it as we laughed. She sighed, then said, “I’m sorry. I’m being rude and tacky. It’s just… I didn’t know how that worked. Then you came down here naked and…” I could tell she was blushing, even in the dark.
“Yeah, sorry about that. We’ll try to be more discreet next time!” Brad said with an embarrassed laugh.
“No! I mean, I’m glad you came to us fast, rather than worrying about clothes. If it had been something serious…” Jessica said.
“Can you guys stay down here tonight? I know that’s cramping your styles, but,” Robin said, “I’d feel better if we were together. Please?”
“Of course,” Amber said without hesitation. I padded upstairs to retrieve our blankets and join them in the living room. I expected sleep to be impossible after the nightmares. But I was asleep almost instantly. When I finally awoke, the room was bright. I sat up, stretched, and watched the others while they slept.
Chapter 42: Leaving Town
Once everyone was awake, we made breakfast and headed out to find tools and materials to make wagons. No one brought up the previous night’s personal discussion or the unintended nudity. “We could split up, cover twice the ground?” Jessica suggested as we headed out to the street.
“No offense, but I’d rather we stuck together,” Robin countered. Jessica looked like she wanted to argue.
“I agree. Mur is keeping an eye on us, somehow. He’s harassing us. I’d rather we faced him together than alone,” I said to head off any arguments that might have started. And because I didn’t want to split up. Jessica nodded reluctantly and Robin gave a quick look of thanks.
So we started going through buildings. It wasn’t hard, but it was still eerie to be the only people in a huge city. Through the quiet, we searched for materials. We didn’t try to rush, figuring it was smarter to take our time and get it right. It took us three and a half days to build the wagons. It was tiring work, but it felt good to make progress on something. On the fourth day, we loaded the wagons, sorting through the foods to get the best variety we could. Mur sent no more nightmares or freezing nights or anything else throughout the time it took to build and load the wagons.
And so on the morning of our sixth day in the city, we started back towards the house and its tunnel. The road was smooth, but we had to travel slower now. Still, I figured we were carrying enough food to last us at least a month. Or at least, that was the plan. We walked out of the city and back into the farmland. We again stocked up on corn. “We should keep at least two or three ears; that way we can plant some when we have a safe garden,” I said as we plucked ears of corn. It felt weird to discuss gardening — or anything permanent — in this place.
It was almost dark when we reached the bamboo forest. We pulled the wagons in amongst the stalks, as far from the road as we could manage. As the sun sank below the horizon, we ate a quick meal and settled in for the night. After sunset, a steady breeze picked up. It wasn’t cold, but something about the constant, unwavering, wind troubled me.
Jessica took the first watch and I tried to go to sleep. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was coming. I kept shifting, trying to get comfortable, but I knew the hard ground wasn’t really the problem. Finally, I gave up, wrapped the blanket around my shoulder, and sat by Jessica.
“Can’t sleep?” she whispered.
“Restless. I don’t know why, but something feels…”
“Wrong.” She said, finishing my sentence. “Something feels wrong. Like that feeling when you know you forgot something important, but can’t remember what it was.” Jessica whispered.
“Yeah. Exactly.” I sighed. “Like anything here is ever right.”
“Just click your heals together three times and say there’s no place like home,” Jessica whispered. I could hear the smile, though it was too dark to see her face clearly.
“We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore!” I whispered back, smiling at the thought of Dorothy following that yellow brick road in Oz. The smile faded quickly, though.
“Do you… do you wish we’d go away?” Jessica hesitantly asked after a long pause.
“What?” I said, trying to shift gears to this new conversation.
There was a delay. I think she was gathering her thoughts, before she asked, “Do you wish we were gone, so you three could be, I dunno, alone or whatever?”
“No! Not at all,” I answered quickly, then took a breath. “Not even a little. Look, this place — this ‘Oz’ — has robbed us of a lot. Our families, our friends, our world, they’re all gone. And it’s stolen some of our humanity as well. No. I don’t want you gone.” I swallowed, fighting back tears. “I want you safe. Besides, you’re the only other humans we know. That makes you family by default.” I slid closer to her and gave her a hug.
That’s when I heard something moving out in the dark. Jessica tensed up at the same time I did, so I knew I wasn’t imagining things. I froze, trying to hear where it was. But the breeze was masking too much sound.
Very slowly, I moved away from Jessica and towards my staff. It took some fumbling in the dark, but my hand closed on the staff just as I heard the hollow knock of something wooden striking one of the bamboo stalks, somewhere out in the wilderness. I grabbed Brad’s shoulder to wake him. “Whu?” he said as I touched his mouth with my finger.
“Something’s coming,” I whispered as softly as I could. He groped around on the ground for his hammer as we heard another hollow knocking sound, closer this time. The night was too dark. I couldn’t see what was coming. Brad quietly awoke Amber. I could hear Jessica waking Robin. My heart was racing and I didn’t know what was out there.
The breeze died suddenly. I could hear leaves rustling now, from three directions. No, four. God, we were surrounded! We huddled up together, facing outward. “They’re making noise on purpose!” Robin whispered.
“Why?” Brad whispered back.
KNOCK! Someone had just slammed a club into a tree, based on the noise. It was some kind of signal, because suddenly the noise changed from rustling to running. Running towards us.
I waved my staff in front of me, but there just wasn’t enough light to see what was coming. I heard something charging for me. At the last second, I swung the staff sideways and somehow I hit something. Whatever it was, it screeched at me in pain or anger. I honed in on the sound and drove my staff in a downward swing. It again impacted with something fleshy. The screeching cut off.
Only then did I become aware of similar noises going on behind me. There was nothing I could do. If I tried to help, I’d probably just end up in the way. I heard Brad’s hammer hit something with the crunch of breaking bone. A high screech cut off and the woods fell silent.
“Everyone okay?” I whispered.
Then something large and black slammed into me from above. I tried to get up, but the strength had been knocked out of me. I groaned and tried again. I managed to sit up. Just as I began to stand, something (the same thing?) slammed into me from above and behind.
Once everyone was awake, we made breakfast and headed out to find tools and materials to make wagons. No one brought up the previous night’s personal discussion or the unintended nudity. “We could split up, cover twice the ground?” Jessica suggested as we headed out to the street.
“No offense, but I’d rather we stuck together,” Robin countered. Jessica looked like she wanted to argue.
“I agree. Mur is keeping an eye on us, somehow. He’s harassing us. I’d rather we faced him together than alone,” I said to head off any arguments that might have started. And because I didn’t want to split up. Jessica nodded reluctantly and Robin gave a quick look of thanks.
So we started going through buildings. It wasn’t hard, but it was still eerie to be the only people in a huge city. Through the quiet, we searched for materials. We didn’t try to rush, figuring it was smarter to take our time and get it right. It took us three and a half days to build the wagons. It was tiring work, but it felt good to make progress on something. On the fourth day, we loaded the wagons, sorting through the foods to get the best variety we could. Mur sent no more nightmares or freezing nights or anything else throughout the time it took to build and load the wagons.
And so on the morning of our sixth day in the city, we started back towards the house and its tunnel. The road was smooth, but we had to travel slower now. Still, I figured we were carrying enough food to last us at least a month. Or at least, that was the plan. We walked out of the city and back into the farmland. We again stocked up on corn. “We should keep at least two or three ears; that way we can plant some when we have a safe garden,” I said as we plucked ears of corn. It felt weird to discuss gardening — or anything permanent — in this place.
It was almost dark when we reached the bamboo forest. We pulled the wagons in amongst the stalks, as far from the road as we could manage. As the sun sank below the horizon, we ate a quick meal and settled in for the night. After sunset, a steady breeze picked up. It wasn’t cold, but something about the constant, unwavering, wind troubled me.
Jessica took the first watch and I tried to go to sleep. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was coming. I kept shifting, trying to get comfortable, but I knew the hard ground wasn’t really the problem. Finally, I gave up, wrapped the blanket around my shoulder, and sat by Jessica.
“Can’t sleep?” she whispered.
“Restless. I don’t know why, but something feels…”
“Wrong.” She said, finishing my sentence. “Something feels wrong. Like that feeling when you know you forgot something important, but can’t remember what it was.” Jessica whispered.
“Yeah. Exactly.” I sighed. “Like anything here is ever right.”
“Just click your heals together three times and say there’s no place like home,” Jessica whispered. I could hear the smile, though it was too dark to see her face clearly.
“We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore!” I whispered back, smiling at the thought of Dorothy following that yellow brick road in Oz. The smile faded quickly, though.
“Do you… do you wish we’d go away?” Jessica hesitantly asked after a long pause.
“What?” I said, trying to shift gears to this new conversation.
There was a delay. I think she was gathering her thoughts, before she asked, “Do you wish we were gone, so you three could be, I dunno, alone or whatever?”
“No! Not at all,” I answered quickly, then took a breath. “Not even a little. Look, this place — this ‘Oz’ — has robbed us of a lot. Our families, our friends, our world, they’re all gone. And it’s stolen some of our humanity as well. No. I don’t want you gone.” I swallowed, fighting back tears. “I want you safe. Besides, you’re the only other humans we know. That makes you family by default.” I slid closer to her and gave her a hug.
That’s when I heard something moving out in the dark. Jessica tensed up at the same time I did, so I knew I wasn’t imagining things. I froze, trying to hear where it was. But the breeze was masking too much sound.
Very slowly, I moved away from Jessica and towards my staff. It took some fumbling in the dark, but my hand closed on the staff just as I heard the hollow knock of something wooden striking one of the bamboo stalks, somewhere out in the wilderness. I grabbed Brad’s shoulder to wake him. “Whu?” he said as I touched his mouth with my finger.
“Something’s coming,” I whispered as softly as I could. He groped around on the ground for his hammer as we heard another hollow knocking sound, closer this time. The night was too dark. I couldn’t see what was coming. Brad quietly awoke Amber. I could hear Jessica waking Robin. My heart was racing and I didn’t know what was out there.
The breeze died suddenly. I could hear leaves rustling now, from three directions. No, four. God, we were surrounded! We huddled up together, facing outward. “They’re making noise on purpose!” Robin whispered.
“Why?” Brad whispered back.
KNOCK! Someone had just slammed a club into a tree, based on the noise. It was some kind of signal, because suddenly the noise changed from rustling to running. Running towards us.
I waved my staff in front of me, but there just wasn’t enough light to see what was coming. I heard something charging for me. At the last second, I swung the staff sideways and somehow I hit something. Whatever it was, it screeched at me in pain or anger. I honed in on the sound and drove my staff in a downward swing. It again impacted with something fleshy. The screeching cut off.
Only then did I become aware of similar noises going on behind me. There was nothing I could do. If I tried to help, I’d probably just end up in the way. I heard Brad’s hammer hit something with the crunch of breaking bone. A high screech cut off and the woods fell silent.
“Everyone okay?” I whispered.
Then something large and black slammed into me from above. I tried to get up, but the strength had been knocked out of me. I groaned and tried again. I managed to sit up. Just as I began to stand, something (the same thing?) slammed into me from above and behind.
. . .
I’m not sure how long I was out, but when I came to, Brad was gently shaking my shoulder and whispering my name. It was still pitch black. I groaned something incoherent. He paused. “What happened?” I said. Or tried to. Pain was washing over my body in waves that made thought or speech difficult. I forced myself to take a deep breath and slowly let it out, then tried again. “What happened?” I said, more slowly, so maybe the words would be recognizable.
“Gargoyles,” Brad said. Fear constricted his voice. I felt a tear hit my face, having fallen from his.
“Oh, oh god. Is everyone…“ I started to ask.
“They took Robin.”
I closed my eyes for just a second. “How long was I out?”
“Just long enough for them to…”
“Let’s go,” I said forcefully, trying to bottle the fear inside. I tried to stand up. Pain exploded through my head and I fell back, groaning.
“Jessica and Amber are tracking them.”
“How? There’s no moon out.”
“Robin. She’s screaming. They’re following her screams,” Brad said, anguish tearing at his voice.
I tried, more slowly and carefully this time, to sit up. I made it. I felt like I might throw up and then maybe pass out at any moment from pain. Concussion? Worse? I felt my scalp, but there was no blood. Just a swollen, sore, goose egg. I winced as fresh pain lanced out from where I touched. “Let’s go,” I said. Pain made my voice a little shaky. My pulse was racing from fear. I didn’t want to lose anyone.
“Are you sure you can…” he started to say.
“Yes. Dammit, I have to be.”
He offered me an arm. I was grateful, as I’m not sure I could’ve stood up at all without his help. With his help and an almost-muffled groan, I got to my feet. The world only spun for a few seconds as pain flooded through me. He handed me my staff. We headed off into the darkness. I was glad to have the staff, as my balance was unsteady. But as we went on, adrenaline helped washed away enough pain that I could walk.
It seemed to take forever, but eventually, I could hear someone else trying to quickly move through the trees ahead of us. Brad whistled and someone from up ahead whistled back. It was Amber or Jessica, then. It was only then that I realized I could see, that false dawn was beginning to brighten the woods around us. Thank god for that at least.
We caught up with them. It was clear that they’d exhausted themselves in the rush to chase after the gargoyles. They were still going, but I could hear Jessica quietly crying as we came up behind them. “I can’t hear her anymore. She stopped screaming.” Jessica was quietly saying this over and over as she cried. Amber was practically dragging her along, keeping her from collapsing in grief. We kept going. I wasn’t sure where we were headed, but I wasn’t about to suggest we stop.
“Come on. I saw him take her this way. We’ve got to keep going,” Amber urged. We kept going as the night turned to day. Somewhere to our left, sunlight penetrated the branches. The woods were thickening up; I was glad for the additional sunlight.
Fatigue was slowing us down; that and despair. “There! See?” Brad called out, pointing ahead through the trees. For just a second, I saw black wings and, beneath them, the white of Robin’s dress. With fresh hope, we started running again.
We burst out of the woods and into a clearing around a small lake. At the edge of the water, a gargoyle hunched over Robin. We could see that he was breathing hard. I guess he had stopped to rest for a moment as he fled. We came out of the trees and he turned to face us. We fanned out and ran for him. Naked, glistening black in the morning sunlight, he hissed and fanned out his wings as we ran. “Get away from my sister, you freak!” Jessica yelled as she ran. The gargoyle grinned and took half a step towards us.
My head was pounding along with my heart. I was exhausted. But I was going to kill that gargoyle if it was the last thing I ever did. The gargoyle charged us, running over the ground and fanning his wings to boost his speed. Jessica, out in front of the rest of us, swung a knife at him. He dodged it, back-handed her in the face hard enough to knock her down. He kept running at me, not even slowing down as he struck her. I stopped running and got ready. Adrenaline slowed everything down to a crawl as my heart raced.
The creature looked angry. His naked body was covered in sweat. The creature’s manhood showed he enjoyed the chase far too much. But I was done. I was done with these foul creatures and all their shit. From the corner of my eye, I saw Brad raise his hammer and correct his course, curving in to intercept the thing. I couldn’t see where Amber was. Jessica was recovering from the slap and beginning to stand up. But there would be no time for her. Everything was moving in slow motion, but happening so fast.
The gargoyle was still coming at me, faster than a man could run, thanks to his wings. At the last second, he lifted from the ground. I could see the talons in his hands and feet. The tension in his arms and legs as he took wing showed me that he intended to cut me as he passed overhead. I was so fucking done with his shit.
“She’s. My friend! You. Can’t. Have. Her!” I yelled as the gargoyle came at me. I slammed the tip of my staff into him as he came at my head. I’d aimed for his crotch. That disgusting, obscene, thing was offensive. But instead I hit him in the sternum. The sudden impact knocked the staff from my hands as he flew past. My hands hurt from the jarring impact. I fell flat, letting him pass over my head. His momentum carried him a few feet behind me, where he landed face-first and slid a body length in the dirt.
I rolled over to watch him fall. Before he’d stopped sliding, Amber’s sword sunk through the back of his ribcage. Quickly, now, more may be coming, my brain fired at me through the pain and fear. I rushed forward, forcing my body to ignore the pain in my hands and in my head. I was so dizzy I almost fell. No time for that, either. I rolled the body over. My staff was imbedded in his side. I jerked it free and saw a triangle with an eye in the center, painted in red on the gargoyle’s forehead. I stood up and turned in a circle, daring anything out there to come at me.
But we were alone there by the lake. I made another turn, just in case the gargoyle’s friends were lurking. But nothing else came out. I heard a wrenching sob from behind me and turned to face the lake. There, Jessica was holding Robin in her arms. Robin’s body was limp.
I could see blood on her legs from where the gargoyle had been holding her in flight. I dropped my staff and rushed towards Jessica. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she stared past me into the distance. Even as we rushed to her side, she stood, holding her sister, pain fading to anger on her face. Oh, fuck me, had we caught up to her too late, then?
The story continues in Part Fifteen.
