Beyond Armageddon: Book 03 - Parallels (57 page)

            "Don’t you see? Don’t you see?"

            "What?"

            "On my Earth, we’re doing pretty good. We survived the first years of the invasion. We haven’t been beaten down. Just like the Chaktaw here, they’re holding on pretty good, right?"

            She nodded.

            "Voggoth convinces you to get me, probably hoping that everything would fall apart for man on my Earth. He brings me here thinking maybe I can help wipe out the Chaktaw!"

            Trevor pinched his nose and shut his eyes. The scope of his failure caused a pounding ache in his temples. He had left behind his world, putting everything gained there in jeopardy, and come here to aid Voggoth unwittingly as well as whomever else choreographed Armageddon.

            "One other thing, Trevor. Part of the deal…you're not supposed to go home. Voggoth was going to help us as long as you're here fighting for Thebes. Snowe told me that, um, that…"

            His eyes opened. "That you're supposed to kill me if I find a way back, right? So what of it, Nina? I might have a way home. Are you going to try and stop me?"

            The question nearly sounded funny. Despite her combat skills and despite the rifle and pistols she carried, Major Nina Forest was fully defeated. She existed now only in his shadow. She could no more shoot him than grow wings and fly away. He saw this clearly and despite his anger for what she had done, the idea of such a strong person being so completely beaten down did conjure a pang of pity in his heart.

            He said, "Voggoth behind it all. Pulling the strings. Manipulating the whole thing. So tell me, your army of misfits and mercenaries marched through your gateway and came here, right?"

            "For the most part everyone stayed together and in formation, but there were reports that the gateway sort of misfired, sending some troops and equipment to completely different places on the planet. We found out the tech didn't work as perfectly as advertised. Still, most of us hit the ground here, marching through the gate or appearing near to it."

            "Okay, but you also brought animals through. I’ve seen them. I figured they were indigenous here, but I was wrong. I saw wolves and deer and pigeons. They came with you."
            She answered, "There’s another gateway from our home world that sends over animals. All part of terra-forming this planet into something like we knew. I never could figure out exactly why, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Seems like the idea of the invasion is more than just grabbing land, kind of like erasing the Chaktaw's entire civilization. I don’t know where that other gate is, if that’s what you’re asking."

            "All the higher life forms plus an army. So tell me, Nina, how many civilizations are involved in this? Do you know? Tell you what; I’m going to guess that there are seven others. Seven others including the Chaktaw plus mankind, that equals eight."

            Trevor felt satisfaction at figuring out something the Old Man would never have admitted, but Nina contradicted, "I want to say nine. I mean, when you count Voggoth."

            "That wouldn’t add up," he protested because he really wanted to be right; he wanted to understand. "If there are eight universes, there should be eight different civilizations. Each universe with a different race on Earth, defending against an invasion by all the others. That would add up. Nice and neat."

"Look, I’ll tell you whatever I know," she said in an almost pleading voice. "But I don’t like being caught in the open like this."

            "Yes," he agreed. "Caught in an
alien
environment."

            She cast her eyes down again. Yet he did agree. It was time to move on.

---

            Trevor and Nina followed the road that, in turn, followed a river through a tight valley with massive walls made of unforgiving, un-climbable rock.

Afternoon moved toward evening. The rain stopped but the blanket of intimidating clouds remained, fitting like a lid atop the foreboding mountain peaks to either side.

They came to the largest Chaktaw city they had yet encountered, protected by a high, iron wall stretching from one end of the valley to the other like a dam. Unfortunately, it had not succeeded in its task. A large segment of the protective barrier had been smashed. Piles of twisted beams and other debris lay to either side. Through a gap in the failed wall, Trevor glimpsed buildings, some tall, some wide, all grouped together in a metropolis, the Chaktaw’s version of New York City or Los Angeles or Houston for that matter.

            The road approaching the city told the story. Trevor and Nina first circumvented craters where bombs had impacted, then carefully stepped through a field of rotted Chaktaw defenders, their flesh picked clean from years of scavenging.

            Next came something he first thought to be a pile of bones heaped together. However, he soon realized that he looked not at a collection but at one massive skeleton, one that offered a clue as to the force that had battered the protective wall.

            In the remains, he saw huge legs with cloven hoofs that had once made the ground shake with each step. At the top of the body, a skull devoid of skin yet still sporting two ram-like horns.

            The two stared at the horrendous corpse outside the broken walls of the city. In it, they saw a conspiracy crossing universes.

Eventually, they started again, moving around the huge skeleton and toward the city where many truths waited to be spoken.

            After circumventing the giant's bones as well as piles of collapsed wall, the two travelers entered the city proper. The setting sun cast shadows across the ruins of stores, office buildings, and supermarkets, as well as the disintegrating remains of the Chaktaw residents who once called this place home.

Inside the wall, the road sprouted branches weaving through the metropolis.

Here, the Chaktaw favored more traditional buildings including a few tall ones, although they appeared less obsessed with skyscrapers than humanity; the tallest structure Trevor saw reached ten floors.

Building materials resembled what he knew from home. The preferred color pattern appeared to be white stone or metal with a coat of glossy enamel and blue glass for windows. Some buildings stood on stilts allowing for sidewalks and parking areas underneath.

The valley surrounded the city providing a sense of cover and security, like all of the Chaktaw places he encountered to date. He suspected that these people evolved in a harsher environment, either fighting each other like mankind did on Trevor's pre-Armageddon Earth, or perhaps confronted with more dangerous predators.

            "We need to find somewhere to hold up for the night," he said.

"Looks like we’ve got a lot to choose from, you know?"

Trevor stopped walking, looked to her, and then glanced around at the 'empty' buildings. As if in response, they heard a soft crack of glass, a scraping noise like a sharp edge drawn across metal, and then what sounded like a moan.

"I think we need to find somewhere. Real quick like."

            Ahead of Trevor and Nina the main road split at a ‘Y’ intersection. To the right and left stood buildings of various sizes in various states of decay as well as side streets and alleyways. Facing them from the middle of that 'Y' was a pillar-like building lined with triangular windows, topped with bent transmission towers, and at its base a gaping black hole framed by the remains of smashed front doors.

            From that hole came a gang of ghastly-white creatures with sunken eyes and skull-like faces shambling forward like primates, the creatures Trevor had long ago nicknamed "Ghouls."

Major
Forest
raised her assault rifle but Trevor pushed the barrel down.

"If you shoot it'll wake up everything else in this city. Run!"

He directed their escape along a small path between two round buildings featuring gigantic but smashed video boards.

With heavy packs and bulky bedrolls on their backs, it only took a few seconds for their sprint to deteriorate into a jog. Their half-empty canteens sloshed, utility belts jingled, and their heavy boots thumped with each step making it difficult to hide their movement. Behind them—closing fast--the pursuing Ghouls hooted and grunted.

The road ended at a tall stone wall but Trevor spotted an open door in one of the surrounding buildings. He could not guess what denizen nested inside, but with the Ghouls nearly upon them, they had no choice but to take a chance.

            With bayonets fixed, Trevor and Nina charged into the darkness. Based on the echo of their footsteps, it felt like a very big but pitch black room with a low ceiling and filled with both a chill and a musty stink.

Nina lit a flare and tossed it ahead while Trevor searched for and found the exterior door. He swung it shut and, in the red glare of the flare, spotted a forked steel rod—perhaps a tool of some kind—and propped it against the door, jamming it shut at least temporarily. Claws and teeth gnashed the other side, attempting to scrape and bite through.

"We need to keep moving," Trevor spoke the obvious but the sparkling glow of the flare lit only more darkness, giving no clue to their surroundings.

Nina answered with a second flare, this time holding it aloft, creating an umbrella of light. He moved to her side and together they advanced, hoping to find another exit while the door held. When Trevor kicked something, he saw the floor littered with debris including scraps of paper, metal shards, and bone fragments.

Behind them across the black void, the Ghouls pushed against the door. Their thumps, thuds, and scratches reverberated all around yet…yet Trevor heard another sound, one with them in the dark. Something like…the sound of…breathing?

The sparkling red flare lit a bundle of junk in their path; a mound of branches, planks, piping, and shrubs. Mixed in with the junk, a carcass of some small animal.

Trevor barely had time to mutter, "Oh shit," before the master of the den roared out of the darkness into the intruders' balloon of light, stumbling toward them on two big legs standing seven feet. In a flash, a big furry paw sent Nina sprawling to the floor. Her flare rolled across the ground sending strobes of red light through the chamber.

The monster turned to Trevor, dropping to all fours yet still of intimidating size. It rammed him with a snapping snout, teeth tearing away his thigh rig, knocking him down, and sending his assault rifle to the floor beside him.

As the creature paused to roar, the rolling flare shined perfectly on the beast, illuminating white-tipped brown fur, a muscular body nearly a thousand pounds in weight, and massive paws.

Trevor yelled, "It’s a damn Grizzly Bear!"

At that same instant across the black chamber came the sound of the door crashing open, the metal tool
clanging
on the hard floor, and the shuffle of Ghouls' feet.

He had no time to consider the irony. As the animal lunged at him again, Trevor stretched for his bullpup rifle and wielded the gun like a club, momentarily warding off his attacker as the edge of the bayonet cut across its snout.

Trevor thought,
an invading monster from Nina’s home world. A world where the animals are like what I know on my Earth. Yet here, they’re the monsters.

            "Come on!" Nina helped him to his feet with one hand and threw the flare with the other. It landed in front of the ghastly mob, attracting the bear's attention.

As she led him away, Trevor dared a glance behind. The flare created a flickering sphere of illumination shining upon a battle between creatures from different worlds. One Ghoul flew through the air, possibly missing a limb. Others surrounded and clawed the Grizzly.

A rush of fresh air turned his attention forward again as they came to and opened an exit door, escaping to the outside with the Ghouls and the Grizzly too occupied to follow.

---

            The building could easily have been an office complex from Trevor’s Earth, filled with a variety of chambers of various sizes devoid of furniture and most windows smashed or at least cracked. After a quick search of the six story complex, the fugitives decided the place seemed safe. Of course, in the post-Apocalyptic world
—pick a world—
‘safe’ was a relative term.

            In any case, Trevor and Nina found two windowless, adjoining offices on the fourth floor, perfect for hiding the glow of their chemical lantern, a small container that generated hours of both light and heat when the liquids inside mixed.

Dinner came first; dry crackers coated with a powdery vegetable spread and accompanied by a metal tin of packed fish that might have been mackerel. As he washed the rough meal down with a swig from his canteen, Trevor decided the time had come for questions.

"Tell me about your home, Nina."

The glow from the churning chemicals inside the lantern flickered like a watery candle and danced across her soft yet strong features as she leaned against a wall and told her story. She spoke in a voice that suggested a distant sadness, perhaps homesickness.