Death Springs Eternal: The Rift Book III (25 page)

He straightened himself, re-covered his nose, and once more worked his way through the smoke. His lungs burned and he coughed frequently, but he pressed onward. He found the generator by following the sound it made, and luckily nothing stood in his way. He stared at it while it shook, smelling gas and seeing one side was scorched. A smile crept across his face. All it would take was a twist of the lever, and this whole nightmare would end.

Larry reached for the lever. Something flickered in front of him, moving much too fast. His fingers went numb. He lifted his hand to his face and stared at four jagged stumps, squirting blood straight into the air. His lips dropped into a frown. It seemed so unreal. He didn’t even feel any pain.

He staggered backward, lightheaded. Again he saw something in his periphery, and he turned toward it. A shadowy, hunched figure approached through the smoke. Larry decided that what he was seeing wasn’t real, that it was nothing but a dream.

“Oh, hey Hec,” he muttered. “You look like shit.”

A deformed
thing
that held a passing resemblance to Hector stood before him, stooped over with huge teeth, holding a lawnmower blade in its clawed, smoking hand. The thing grinned at him with frayed lips, and one of its teeth pierced through its blister-covered cheek. It raised the hand holding its weapon and swung.

The blade caught Larry across the stomach, and this time the pain
did
come. He hollered as loud as he could. A feeling of
lessening
came over him. He reached down with his hands—one with fingers, one without—in an instinctual attempt to try and stop his intestines from spilling out of his abdomen. The thing raised its arm again, and Larry took off. His movements were sluggish, he didn’t know if he was going in the right direction, there were approaching footsteps from behind him, and the knocking of the furnace got even louder, but none of that mattered. The only thoughts going through his head were the image of his intestines leaking between his fingers and the incredible pain. He heard his friends shouting, guiding him. He had to get outside. He had to reach safety.
The quicker, the better.

*
  
*
  
*

Corky couldn’t stop coughing. Even standing a good ten feet away from the bulkhead, the swirling smoke made his sinuses and throat burn. To make matters worse he was soaked, and cold, and shivering, and felt like he was going to get sick. Not a good combination.

“Larry!” Dennis screamed into the black hole. “C’mon, man, hurry up!”

“We should get down there,” said Corky, though that wasn’t high on his list of things he wanted to do. “Bring him out. It’s been almost ten minutes.”

Luis paced back and forth, shooting nervous glances at Horace, who knelt on the other side of the concrete enclosure, looking like hell while he watched Doug, who stood on the top step, a bandana over his nose, standing admirably still despite the smoke and warmth.

“You see him?” Corky asked between hacks.

“No,” Doug yelled back without turning around. “I can’t see shit!”

Corky stood up, fought a wave of dizziness, and approached the bulkhead. “C’mon guys, we gotta go now. I think he’s in trouble.”

Doug finally turned to meet his gaze. There were tears in his eyes, but that could’ve been a result of the smoke. “Okay,” the kid said. He pointed at the rear balcony. “Let me get my rifle first, though. Y’know, just in case there’s…”

The young soldier’s eyes widened and he whirled around, catching Corky by surprise. Doug then jumped back, revealing a reaching, fingerless hand. A body appeared, sprawled out on the steps, gawking and spitting blood. Corky almost puked.

“Fuck!” he yelled. “Larry!”

He leaned forward and grasped his friend under the armpits. Larry’s skull smoldered, his hair was gone, and he was covered in blood. His head lolled back as Corky lifted him, and his eyes rolled up. Thick gobs of slippery matter then struck Corky in the thigh, making him let go. He glanced down, saw ream after ream of glistening red tubes slop onto the stairs, and he froze. “Holy shit, holy shit,” he stammered.

A sound came from below him, and he peered into the blackness. A pair of glowing eyes appeared, moving menacingly up the steps. Corky backed away, almost tripping over the ledge, while the rain cascaded down on him. Doug appeared beside him, having retrieved his rifle and holding it at the
ready,
and emptied round after round into the darkness. The creature below roared, the glowing eyes disappearing back into the smoke.

This can’t be happening
, Corky thought. The whole of him went numb.

Screams all around him, bringing him back to the real world.
The others scampered away from the hole.
Shouts too, someone telling him to get away as fast as he could.
Corky turned around and spotted Tom limping toward them, waving his arms. Corky started jogging, mindless of his own actions.

And that’s when the dragon roared.

The first sensation was a heavy vibration, followed by deafening thunder. The next was that of flying, as his feet lifted off the ground and he floated gracefully on the wings of angels. Then the wind hit his cheeks and he fell to the earth, smacking the nose Tom had broken months ago in the process. Luckily the ground was mostly mud, and his face sunk in. He breathed deep, swallowed a mouthful of dirty water, and lifted his head. He coughed and spat, swearing to himself. Looking up, he saw the faces of the rest of his friends, all on the ground as well, their eyes wide.

Corky turned around, and what he saw astonished him. A thick spiral of orange and yellow flame spewed from the bulkhead and the windows of the floor above, sending shards of wood and concrete flying. The baseboards then shattered and the walls blew outward, showering glass into the wind and rain. The deer carcass—and its stand—had collapsed, smoldering, to the ground. Corky scuttled backward on his hands, trying to get as far away from the scene as possible.

Someone grabbed him by the shirt collar and tugged. He glanced up and saw Tom, a look of gritty determination on his face, pulling him as hard as he could away from the blast. Then another explosion came, and this one seemed to happen in slow motion. The entire side of the building splintered, coming down in a shower of fire and debris.

“No gawking!” shouted Tom. “Move your ass, man!”

Corky shook his head, realized the rest of the troupe was running along the wall, heading for the main gate. He heard Shelly’s voice rise above the crackle of fire and pounding rain, desperately asking
where’s Quirky, where’s
Quirky
,
and that got his feet moving. His strength returned and he plowed a shoulder into Tom, lifting the emaciated man with little effort, and ran for it. In the parking lot he passed the Beamer, the car that had sat idle in the same parking spot since the day they arrived. A block of concrete had smashed through the roof, caving it in. He felt Tom wince against his back.

The propane tanks that ran the
Clinton
’s stove went up just as Corky passed through the front gate. The structure was an inferno, a living tower of flame and heat. Corky looked from one face to another as they all stood there, out in the rain, and he felt afraid to breathe. Dennis, a wide gash on one cheek, slumped with his arm around Luis, whose lower lip quivered. Doug crouched on the concrete, holding his rifle close to his chest. Horace was on his knees, panting as water dripped over his glasses and nose. Tom and Allison breathed heavily, five feet between them, while Allison glared at her husband with squinting eyes and pursed lips. He saw Shelly between them, scanning the others much like he was, and when her eyes met his she dashed forward, wrapping her tiny arms around his legs much as she’d done when they first met. Her innocent voice was a cacophony of bawls and whimpers, and he brought a comforting hand down and ran it through her soaked, curly hair.

“
It’s
okay darlin’,” he said.

But it wasn’t.

“What the fuck do we do now?” Luis asked no one in particular. “Where do we go?”

“I got no fucking clue,” said Dennis.

Corky had a feeling everyone else felt the exact same way.

CHAPTER 9

THE RUINS

Storming through dense foliage, cutting down vines and tropical plants with a machete he built out of spare propeller parts from the
Bendicion
wrapped in duct tape, Eduardo Periera kept his eyes on the ground, trying to make sure his feet didn’t slip. He’d learning his lesson weeks ago, during his first venture into the jungle, when in his haste to find food he’d stepped in a ditch and turned his ankle. It’d swelled up horribly, forcing him to crawl back to camp. He was laid up for days after that, unable to provide for his family. Luckily for him Lucia was a strong and capable woman, proficient with a rod and spear, but that feeling of uselessness ate away at him all the same. It was bad enough that his architectural skills were poor, that every time a tropical storm blew over the island the winds toppled over the hut he’d constructed from tarps and downed palm trees. He only wanted Eddie Jr. to look up to him the way he’d looked up to his own father—as a strong, capable provider.

He leaned against a tree as the land scaled upward, catching his breath. Sweat poured over his face. His thoughts drifted back to
Spain
, to the modest apartment just off the coast where he, Lucia, and Eddie Jr. had lived in reticent luxury. They didn’t have much—two bedrooms, a small drawing room, and an even smaller kitchen—but that was fine by him. To Eduardo, the only things that mattered were family and the sea.

And now here he was, on some uncharted island in the middle of the
Atlantic
, closer to both his family and the ocean than anyone could ever be, but it didn’t seem to be enough. The
Bendicion
, his fishing vessel and the other pride of his adult life, sat idle just off the coast, swaying between rock-filled jetties like a huge, useless piece of driftwood. The engines hadn’t fired since the day they’d flooded, and he’d put off fixing them. There didn’t seem to be a point. The Virgin no longer spoke to him, as if God had given up on the world and stowed the mother of His son away in their secluded golden paradise. Even the reprise he’d received months ago, when the image of another feminine presence came to him and refilled his soul with a desire for life, was starting to wane. He’d resigned himself to living the life of a castaway, hunting and fishing and rebuilding their shelter almost daily, yet the relative inactiveness ate away at him. This was why he pressed deeper into the wilderness each day, exploring their new home for as long as daylight would allow.

The archipelago was expansive—the island the Perieras were on being the largest in a chain of four, though Eduardo hadn’t investigated the others as of yet. There was abundant plant and animal life to sustain them, with exotic birds and wild boars, and even a few smaller species of bovine populating the dense inland jungle. Eduardo had ventured from one side of the island to the other, from white sandy beaches to craggy cliffs. It was a self-sustaining ecosystem, almost too perfect to have come about naturally. He’d discovered caves filled with pools of fresh water—caves they sometimes used for shelter during the worst of the storms—and there was nary a predator to be seen. At night they dined on fruits and meats, much like they would back home. He rarely had to row back out to the ship and retrieve supplies, as the island gave them everything they needed.

But it was the reflection that caught his eye one morning, like glass catching the sunlight at just the right angle, which pushed him to explore deeper and deeper. It had come from the top of the green, mountainous center of the island, a constant flash of light that blinded him whenever he glanced at it directly. It came from out of nowhere after a rather intense storm, like a gift to his psyche from the Virgin, Herself. A sense of adventure filled him, a break from the monotony of survival, though he also felt a twinge of jealousy. Though whatever he saw may have been simple detritus brought to the island by a massive hurricane, it was entirely possible that there had been others on this hunk of rock first. And if there was one thing Eduardo brought with him from his former life as sailor, it was the pride of first discovery.

Grasping small saplings and stones embedded in the mountainside for support, Eduardo pulled his body over the harsh, rocky slope. It was rough going—the incline steep, the footing treacherous—but so far he’d managed to not hurt himself. Soon he left the cover of trees behind and the ground became grassy and covered with slippery moss. It was a good thing they’d landed and set up camp on northern coast of the island. Though precipitous, the grade was a cakewalk compared to the sheer cliffs to the south. At least this way he had a chance to make it to the top before
noon
.

Upon reaching the open air, he heard distant hoots echo around him. He stood straight up, jamming his feet into gaps in the volcanic rock to steady him, and glanced over his shoulder. A panorama of crystalline, green
Caribbean
waters greeted his eyes, expansive and stretching out forever beneath blue, cloudless skies. It took his breath away, made him feel small; a speck of life in a world filled with surging water.

The echoing of voices came again, and he lowered his gaze. There was the
Bendicion
, looking like a mirage in the distance. Further inland there was the beach, and a pair of figures, no more than specks in his vision, standing close to the surf. He lifted his looking glass (an antique gift from his father) and peered through. The magnified circle centered
around
Lucia, whose sheer white clothing clung to her body as it blew in the wind. Her arm was raised, waving at him. Eddie Jr. stood beside her, echoing her movements. Lucia put her fingers into her mouth, whistled then shouted, though he could barely hear it. The smile on her face was intoxicating, as if the sight of her husband, even at such a great distance, was all she needed to make everything all right. Eduardo lifted his own hand and waved back. “
¡Mi amor!
” he shouted, hearing his voice reverberate a hundred times against the cliffs and crashing waves. He then glanced to the east, saw the sun high in the sky, and pushed onward.

It was a little past the high point of the day by the time he reached the peak. The land leveled out, and he whistled between his teeth in awe. He stood on a raised lip, staring down into a valley. It looked like the crater of a long-dead volcano—and a huge one, at that.

But the valley wasn’t empty, and his heart dropped. Stones gathered in rectangular formations and petrified logs were strewn about. He stepped down from his perch and strode across the grass, between the smaller trees that grew up at that altitude, looking left and right. Though he felt the withering sensation that came from his loss of primacy, his wonder grew. The way the stones were stacked, dead grass clinging to the remains of what had once been thatched roofs, the way the formations were spaced at even intervals, told him all he needed to know. There had been a village here once.

The sparse trees parted, revealing a clearing covered with more stones. He put his hands on his hips and walked along the edge. These stones were large and gray, inconsistent with the volcanic rock that made up the majority of the mountain. There were words etched into them, long faded, written in a language he didn’t understand. The place reminded him of a crude cemetery. The wind blew and a flash of light caught his eye.

At the edge of the clearing, positioned along the eastern ridge of the crater, was an impossibly tall stack of rocks. He ran across the field, tripping over the gravestones more than once, and excitement bubbled in his gut. What he saw was another obviously man-made construction, large stones heaped upon each other perfectly, forming a pyramid. The flash of light reached him again, coming from its peak. He moved his feet faster.

Each weathered stone making up the pyramid was huge, almost as tall as him. They must have weighed a ton. The process by which anyone could have dragged them up the side of the mountain was beyond him, but the
how
didn’t really matter. The
why
and
who
were what drove his desire to investigate, what made him drape his arms around the first huge stone he came across, find his footing, and begin climbing the ten-meter-high structure with the giddy zeal of a child on Christmas morning.

The stones were solid and, unmoving, easily holding his weight, positioned in such a way that they formed a massive staircase. It didn’t take very long to reach the top, and once he did he collapsed, breathing heavily, and stared at what awaited him, unsure of what he was seeing.

The stone at the apex was five feet wide and just as long. In the center was a crack, and from that crack jutted the source of the light he’d seen—a bejeweled handle. He crawled forward. It was a sword of some sort—no, a dagger. He placed his hand upon it, felt the warm metal on his palm, heated by the intense, burning sun, and ran his fingertips along the precious stones. There were rubies and emeralds, moonstone and onyx, cut small and embedded in the steel.

He wrapped his fingers around the handle and pulled. At first there was no give—of course the thing was lodged in there tight, since it had obviously survived Lord knew how many thousands of years of harsh weather—but as he worked it back and forth it started to come loose. Slowly the blade slid from its sheath of rock, grinding against the stone, causing a high-pitched whining sound. When it ripped free, Eduardo held it in the air, feeling like the King Arthur from his storybooks of old, and a hysterical cackle escaped his lips.

When his histrionics died down, he lowered the blade and stared at it, flipping it over in his hand. It was gorgeous, crafted with such care and ingenuity that it seemed to come from a different place and time entirely. It was one piece of metal forged to look like two, the handle black, the blade glimmering silver. There were words and symbols etched on the edge of the blade, in the same style and language as had been on the rocks in the mortuary below. He touched the edge and accidentally cut his finger. He sucked the blood from until the flow stopped.

He glanced up and watched the sun begin to recede to the other side of the horizon. It had taken him a good four hours to get to the top of the mountain. If he wanted to get back to camp before nightfall, he’d have to get moving. He took a long swig from his canteen and momentarily considered shoving the knife back into its resting place. Then he heard a soft hum, like an ethereal vibration, and noticed his fingers were shaking. It was the same feeling he’d gotten when collecting items for his journey, back when the Virgin guided his every action. A sense of purpose refilled him, and he almost jumped for joy as he removed his shirt, wrapped it around the blade, and tied it to his canteen with a length of homemade rope. He then tossed the canteen over his shoulder and sprinted across the grassy flatlands, easily skipping past the grave markers this time despite his excitement.

He’d reach the bottom in no time, and then he’d show Lucia and Eddie Jr. his thrilling new discovery. He wasn’t sure what it meant—hell, he didn’t understand most of anything that’d happened over the last half-year—but that didn’t matter. His life had been given new meaning once more. The meaning of the blade, its history and purpose, would make itself known in time. Of that he was certain.