Silas: A Supernatural Thriller (21 page)

He stopped and gathered his breath. His tale had caused my own heart to race, but I didn’t want him to stop.

“What happened next?” I asked.

The boy swallowed hard and continued. “After a month, the only ones left were Papa, Will, and me. We took shelter in the community fruit cellar, rebuilding the blockades we’d constructed each morning because the creature tore them down trying to get at us. Papa knew it would only be a matter of time until it did, so he said we had to leave. We crossed the lake. Papa had discovered this shelter during one of his trips to the Outskirts, and so this is where he brought us. We’ve been here ever since that day, almost four years now.”

“When did the girls come in?”

“Later. They were part of Papa Paul’s
Mission
. He would leave the shelter for weeks at a time and come back with one. That’s all I know.” He pointed at the gaggle of youngsters. “Laura was the first to arrive, almost two years ago. He came home, stayed a couple months, and then was gone again, only to return with Amanda, then Tina, and finally Molly. But with Molly, he pressed his luck. He got back too late in the day. The Dreadnaught swarmed him before he could reach safety. Will went to the surface and retrieved the girl before she was taken, but we had no choice but to shut out our beloved Papa.” Kaiser’s voice faltered. “We abandoned him. His screaming rang through the shelter for an hour before it stopped, and the next day we found blood drenching the leaves on the edge of the forest. He was gone.”

Kaiser wiped the wet streaks from his face. I reached over and squeezed his shoulder. He responded by grabbing my hand and holding it there, acting like the child he should’ve in all rights been.

“Thank you, Mr. Ken,” he said, an earnest smile on his lips.

“You’re welcome,” I replied.

“I don’t believe Will,” he whispered, his eyebrows arched. “You shouldn’t, either. He’s still angry about losing Paul. He hasn’t let it go, and he can’t accept that your being here has been foretold. He can’t accept that you are
the one.
”

“The one to do what?” I asked, not really certain if I wanted to know.

His grin widened. He let go of my hand and went to one of the racks against the wall. Silas, again immersed in the girls’ affection, shifted his attention away from them and watched Kaiser as he took an old piece of pottery that looked very much like one of Wendy’s creations off the shelf, reached his fingers into it, and removed a wad of folded paper. He carried the bit of parchment across the room as if it was a delicate relic worth a fortune and handed it to me.

“This is a letter, Mr. Ken. Paul wrote it just before he went to retrieve Molly. He said it was only to be given to
the one
, and only if he didn’t return. He instructed us never to open it, never to read it, until you arrived. And here you are.”

“How do you know it’s me?” I asked.

Kaiser winked. “There are some things you don’t have to know, to know.”

I held up the letter and stared at it a long time. My hands started to shake. I glanced at the girls and thought of their much-too-familiar-sounding names. I didn’t need it explained to me. I knew
exactly
who they were and where they came from. And this understanding made me not want any part of opening that paper and reading whatever words were printed there. I was no hero. I could never be what the kid wanted. I was only a guy with a dog who wanted to go home. It had already been two days since I chased a human Nick Goodman into the
Green Mountains
, and the authorities were undoubtedly searching for me. As for Wendy…she was surely in a state of panic, and all because I took off without explaining anything.

“I don’t know…” I began. My fingers tapped the wad of papers. I peeled back the corner and stared.

There, written in my own penmanship, was a single sentence that stopped me cold.

Dearest Ken, I know this is going to come as a shock to you.

I just about vomited right then and there.

31

Kaiser agreed that I needed time alone to read the letter and led me to the door opposite their room. What lay beyond that door was a smallish space containing a single bookcase jam-packed with various tomes, some that I recognized quite well. There was a twin bed whose sheets and blankets looked meticulously cared for in the far corner. A desk lamp provided weak illumination, positioned atop an ancient but solidly built end table. I searched about the room for pictures, but there weren’t any.

“This was Papa Paul’s room,” Kaiser announced softly, as if in reverence. “You can stay in here if you like. It seems appropriate.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

Silas tore himself away from the girls’ attention and followed me into the room. He brushed past Kaiser and me and curled up at the base of the bed as if he’d been there hundreds of times before.

“I’m glad you’re comfortable,” I whispered as Kaiser closed the door behind me, leaving us alone. I went over to the bed and sat down.

The mattress engulfed me like a cradle of clouds. “
C’mere
, boy,” I urged, and slapped at the top blanket. Silas hopped up on the bed, wrapped his body around mine, and licked my hand. Warmth spread through my gut. I felt like I did on many a cold night back home in
Connecticut
. That feeling was the only way I could deal with the idea of opening the letter. So with my head resting on a pillow and Silas panting by my side, I unfolded the paper and started reading.

Dearest Ken, I know this is going to come as a shock to you. If you are reading this, then I am either dead or detained, and it is now up to you to finish what I have started. I wouldn’t expect you to believe everything I’m writing here, given that you’re in a strange and dangerous place surrounded by children you have no way of knowing or caring for, but I need you to trust me. What I say to you now is important, probably the most important thing in my world. And yours.

This is not your reality, Ken, though in certain ways it is similar. It could very well be the combined result of mistakes made in the past in one place and not the other, or a possible future that has not yet occurred. However, the differences do not make it any less real. This might be difficult to comprehend, but on a purely metaphysical level there are thousands of worlds. They exist, not parallel to one another, but sprouting out of the snaking line of time like hairs on a caterpillar, separated by the thinnest of membranes, membranes through which our great elders had discovered ways to
push through
.

As a boy, I was unaware of such things. I spent most of my time in Cathedral, a place of worship for those who grew up on the banks of the
Dedot
Sea
. I loved Cathedral, though most found its single room and collection of relics to be drab and boring. But this crumbling vestige of the old world that the Oracles called Smithsonian captivated me. I would sit there quietly for hours, staring at models of single-prop planes and military uniforms, all under the safety of glass cases so we could only look, not touch
.

I drank in all the knowledge Cathedral had to offer. For days I would sit and read about the one event from the
Old World
that Cathedral, this Smithsonian, was dedicated to. I learned of
Germany
and
Britain
,
France
and
Belgium
, countries contained in the much larger land mass called
Europe
. I studied the nature of the politics and social disharmony that led to the War to End All Wars.

It was the story of one man that fascinated me more than all, that of a great German leader who set aside the assumed need for worldwide unity and struck out on his own, declaring war on all who opposed him. Kaiser Wilhelm was his name, the greatest man I’ve ever had the pleasure of learning about, the man who unified the world when his forces conquered all of Europe, the man who helped bring peace to the globe for near a hundred years. He was a man that I, Paul Jacob Nicely, have always strove to emulate.

You seem like a nicely sort of fellow.
Those had been some of Nick Goodman’s first words to me. It made sense now – much more sense, in fact, than a world where
Germany
won World War I. I shuddered, lifted my eyes from the letter, and gazed at Silas. He’d fallen asleep lying across my legs.
You’re lucky, bud
, I thought, and kept on reading.

Now, I understand this man wasn’t perfect
, the letter continued,
and he might even be considered evil in the eyes of many. There were quite a few instructors at Cathedral who said just that. But they did not see the larger point – that this was a man with a sense of individuality, who perceived the need to strike out against the masses, to be one standing out in a sea of many, to obtain his ideals. You might wonder why this appealed to me, so as an explanation I will say this – the world I come from is organized. It is all for one and one for all, with nary a dissenting word to be heard. This is policy adhered to by all, from the Director, the great man who lifted the world out of Chaos after the Rising, to the most insignificant of peasant workers. And yet I’ve fought against this servitude since I was old enough to think, and it was embodied in Kaiser Wilhelm.

I brought this hidden desire with me into adulthood, when I moved to the great
Capital
City
that spans the east coast of this nation and became an
Isrid
– an officer in charge of monitoring the use of dimensional portals. It was my job to make sure no civilians attempted to gain access to them, that only those with Directorial permission were granted passage. I must have impressed my superiors with my dedication to my job, because eventually I was given the honor of being assigned to the Outskirts, the inland areas surrounding the city. The Outskirts were much like my home on the edge of the
Dedot
Sea
, only wilder, more savage. This is where you find yourself now, Ken. It is a very dangerous land. There are remnants of the
Old World
, that which existed before the Rising, that populate this area. The most dangerous of which are the
Tau
-Kin, a people who live in the ancient villages, living as if the existence they once held still has meaning. But these are phantoms, not people. They are animalistic, primal, and cruel. They traipse through the Outskirts, slaughtering any who get in their path, even their own kind. They were also known to cross the
Misting
Lake
and attack those in the border towns, sometimes even progressing far enough so they made life miserable for those on the fringes of the city proper. And it was now my duty, along with fifty of my compatriots, to police these lands, keep them safe.

It was during my time here in the Outskirts that I discovered the three most important beings in my life. The first was my
gi-faht
, my life partner. I found him rummaging through a landfill just outside of our tiny village. He was large yet emaciated, obviously starving, a creature the likes of which I’d never seen before. I’d long heard stories of the Lupine – wolves the size of men, with the intelligence to match – but had passed the tales off as childhood flights of fancy. So to see one before me, with massive, dripping fangs and piercing eyes, I was in awe. I approached him and he didn’t retract. I gave him food and shelter, and from that day forward he gave me companionship, though my fellow villagers made him stay in his homeland out of fear. But he still joined me on my many patrols, and became my friend. He was good, loyal. I christened him Nicholas Goodman, a proper name for a proper, sentient being.