Edge of End (23 page)

“
Night is falling,” she
whispered.

“
It’s odd,” I heard
Malcolm murmur.

“
What’s odd?” I
asked.

“
As long as I’ve been
here, and it’s a very long period, I’ve never seen
nightfall.”

“
You think the town has
put much power against us?” I asked and my mouth remained opened as
I glanced at the house behind me. The one we had entered before and
escaped from the window appeared to be down, four columns and a
half-standing wall that were left the only reminder of
it.

“
What’s going on?” I found
my voice weak. “Malcolm?”

“
I don’t know,” the old
man replied.

I looked at where the road was
supposed to be, but saw another demolished old house, then another
one. We were in the middle of the grave of thousands
houses.

“
Are we still in the
town?” Elizabeth asked looking around as astonished as I
was.

“
I don’t know,” Malcolm
repeated.

“
You’ve been here much
longer than any of us,” I said. “You should know–”

“
I can’t know everything
about the town, Jonathan,” he said angrily.

“
Yeah,” I mumbled. “We’ve
too far. Don’t you feel different?” I asked Malcolm.

“
I do,” he replied as
mildly as before. He picked up a stone and tossed it up into the
air. “Wherever we are, our power doesn’t work here, at least, in
the same way as in the town,” he said as soon as the stone hit the
ground.

“
Wait a minute,” that was
Elizabeth. “If we aren’t in the town then we may be–”

“
In hell?” I
guessed.

“
I doubt our bodies died
back on Earth simultaneously,” Malcolm said. “We rather somewhere
between the town and–”

“
Hell,” I interrupted
again.

“
Get over with the hell,”
Malcolm snapped. “Don’t worry, you’ll have your time in hell. Don’t
rush it.”

“
Hey,” I said back
grumpily. “If we are not in the town and at the same time in hell,
then what is this place?”

“
I don’t know where the
darkness in the house has taken us to,” Malcolm looked about with
his single eye. “Hell only knows what Satan has created from
darkness. Not every soul goes directly either to heaven or to hell
Jonathan. Some of them get lost forever.”

“
Okay,” I didn’t find
anything else to say.

“
So, we’re lost then,”
Elizabeth said.

“
If there is a way in
here, then there have to be the way out, haven’t it?” I mused. “We
may go back to the house and check.”

“
You’ve got two eyes and
I’ve got only one,” Malcolm smirked. “Don’t they see that there
isn’t any house there?”

“
Let’s hear you then,” I
balled my hand to keep my anger locked. “What do you
suppose?”

He kept silence as he hadn’t anything
to say to me. I waved a dismissive hand and marched towards the
remains of the house we had come from. Elizabeth followed me
reluctantly, but Malcolm just stood there examining the
surroundings.

Night was dark, but my
eyes adjusted to see through. Like the
town
there was an indecipherable
source of light that helped me to avoid the absolute
darkness.

“
This is my fault,”
Elizabeth whispered as we widened the distance between us and
Malcolm.

“
You couldn’t know,” I
sighed mournfully.

“
Yeah.”

“
Looks to me we must look
for the way out somewhere else,” I said as I was in the middle of
the demolished house scanning the debris.

“
I’m sorry,” Elizabeth
said. “I should’ve entered that house. Why did you come after me?
You had a good chance to escape.”

“
Yeah,” I said. I could’ve
listened to Malcolm and left her in that house. I would’ve been
much closer to the light by now, but I had gone after
her.

Elizabeth tilted her head dropping her
eyes to the ground. I sighed and reached for her hand.

“
We’re here Elizabeth,” I
said. “We’d better to start thinking about the way out of here
instead the chances I had to escape the afterlife in the town. So,”
I looked about narrowing my eyes. In four sides were demolished
houses and gardens that stretched as long as my eyes caught the
sigh of and were lost in the darkness of the night. No trees, no
grass, nothing to remind me about life at all, stones and black
sand being disturbed by breeze and then calmly resting down on the
ground again. When my eyes returned and rested on Elizabeth, she
was looking at my touch. I wanted to tell her that I knew why she
had found such afterlife in that hellish town, the she had
committed a suicide, but I couldn’t do that.

I remembered to breath and inhaled a
lungful air. I looked at the old man standing some steps afar and
staring ahead. Elizabeth’s eyes followed my gaze.

“
You should be gentle to
him,” she whispered. “He’s the only one amongst us who is able to
understand where we are.”

“
Yeah.”

“
And where we should look
for the way out,” Elizabeth went on.

“
But you don’t like him,”
I reminded.

“
Neither does he. He hates
me because I slow you down, and because of me the town puts its all
power against us. He was a soldier and he counted that with me your
chances go down and reach zero. So I understand him.”

“
Don’t give him too much
credit,” I put my hand on her cheek, and she looked me in the eye.
Even night couldn’t cover her beauty. The way she was looking at
me, no, it wasn’t mournful and it wasn’t happy either, it had a
spatial magic that led me to believe I’d work my way out of there.
“He’s a gamer,” I found the words. “He might stab your
back.”

“
Maybe. But we need
him.”

Yes, we needed the old man. If there
was someone who could find out where we were that was Malcolm. But
even he was at a loss.

Abruptly he turned to us, and I cocked
my head hoping the old man had found out the way. He waved to me
and hurried to us.

“
What is it?” I asked as
he reached us.

“
Hide!” He ordered.
“Quick!”

Without questioning him, Elizabeth and
I followed Malcolm and ran to the half-broken wall and hid
ourselves behind it. As we were seated on the ground our backs
against the wall, I calmed down my breath and asked
Malcolm:

“
What is it? What did you
see?”

“
We aren’t alone,” he
replied his voice hardly audible. Not something I didn’t know. “In
the places like this or the town you must always be on guard and
never let you relax.”

“
Just tell me what it is,”
I sniffed. There was a coin size hole on the wall. Without waiting
for the old man to answer, I looked through it with my one eye
seeking whatever Malcolm had seen in the night.

“
Can you see anything?”
Malcolm asked.

At first I didn’t, but then I saw a
ghostly thing, a man’s height, gliding over the grounds of the next
destroyed house.

“
Jonathan?” Elizabeth
hissed in my ear.

“
I know what it is,” I
said in a whisper. “The faces from the storm, the demons,
soul-eaters. But this one isn’t transparent. Malcolm?” I unlatched
my eye from the hole and looked at him, “What does this
mean?”

The thing was wandering some steps
afar from us with its blackness mingled with the night. Its body
wasn’t static, it was like his insides were burning and his skin
was smoking with dense black smoke. It didn’t have legs to help him
walk; it seemed to me as light as the gravitation let the demon to
crawl over the ground with ease. Two wings were attached to its
back that weren’t moving, just smoking.

“
From what Mangaliny told
me,” he began.

“
Mangaliny,” I
interrupted.

“
The barwoman,” he added
and went on quickly, “The town isn’t the only place where the
demons we saw before live. They have other words too, like
us–humans–have countries and cities. Of course they don’t travel by
car or by plane.”

“
They teleport like we
did,” Elizabeth said. I peered at her uncomprehendingly. “We were
teleported in the other town, accidently I guess.”

“
The darkness lurking
behind that wall tried to swallow us,” Malcolm said. “I told you
that much stronger evil dwells in the last houses and jumping out
of the window we couldn’t know for sure where it would take us. I
guess the darkness reached us at the very last moment and changed
the,” he hesitated for the next word, “
Door,
” he whispered. “So we opened
the door leading us into the night.”

The next moment silence fell,
everybody deep in thoughts. Then I reached for the hole and peeked
at where I last saw the demon. It was moving away
unfazed.

“
I thought there were the
town and hell,” I found myself whispering my eyes pressed to the
hole. Then I pulled myself back and added, “Okay, we only have to
find the right door which will lead us back to the town.” Saying
that I smirked.

“
What is it?” Elizabeth
asked.

“
Never thought I’d wish
myself back to the town,” I said.

“
Yeah, rather in hell than
be lost in godforsaken places,” Malcolm remarked.

“
Malcolm,” a thought
washed over me. “What if the demons find us? They’ll suck our soul,
the energy, and what then? I mean our souls can’t be fully
destroyed, can them? Maybe afterwards they send us to
hell?”

“
Mangaliny once told me
about lost souls,” Malcolm answered trying to seem calm, but, for
the first time since I had met him, I noted anxiety in his voice.
“They suck everything from you. You wouldn’t have strength to keep
your soul united. You’ll be living your souls debris scattered all
over the Satan’s worlds and become the part of,” he paused looking
up, “Night, I guess, or ground. Practically you wouldn’t exist or
you’d be suffering forever. I can’t imagine what happens to those
souls.”

His words made the chill run over my
spine. With horrified eyes Elizabeth stared at me, and I guessed I
was looking at her like that too.

“
I told you there are much
horrible things Jonathan. And you cared about the dogs and flying
demons,” he chortled.

“
We just need to find the
door leading to the town,” I murmured after a little
while.

“
Can you see a door
around?” he teased.

“
If we sit here and wait,
we sure wouldn’t.” I stirred and was about to stand up when Malcolm
put his hand on my shoulder and held me. “What?” I asked in
indignation.

“
We don’t know where to
go,” he said. “More we deepen, less chances we got. This place
doesn’t have roads or anything else to help us find our ways back
here. We can’t orientate, and eventually we’ll get ourselves
lost.”

“
We’re already lost,” I
grumbled.

“
Look, Jonathan, now I
want you to forget about the light and sit tight. You rush the
things and your soul will be sucked up, it debris scattered all
over around. Right now your main goal is to reach the town, not the
light. Prey that the light won’t go down by then which I
doubt.”

“
You want me to give up on
my only salvation?” I widened my eyes in surprise.

He grabbed my collar curtly. Elizabeth
flung onto me and tried to help, but Malcolm shoved her away. “You
lost your chance when you picked her up,” he said with husky voice.
“You want to be on your own, go on then,” he loosened my shirt his
eye piercingly looking into mines. “We don’t know how many demons
dwell here, we don’t know where to go which leads me to believe
we’ll rather serve our souls to demons on a tray than find the way
out.”

Malcolm trailed off and leaned against
the wall. I breathed out deeply. The old man was right, this place
wasn’t like the town, we didn’t know what our power was capable of
here–in the night. There was nothing to guide us to
anywhere.

I relaxed my hands and put my head
against the wall my eyes looking at the sky–the absolute darkness
hang above us. Somehow we were able to see through night, not as
good as in the town, but at least it was something.

Elizabeth pulled her legs up to wrap
her arms around her knees and rested her chin on them. Silence
fell, every so often being broken by the breeze.

While we sat at the wall pondering,
the wind grew stronger picking up black sand and hovering it around
my feet. It was getting cold. Elizabeth crawled close to me, and I
put my arm around her in hope to warm her up but this wasn’t my
body, and although blood would come of my wound if I was stabbed or
bitten by a beast, it wasn’t hot, it was just a poor reminder of
our real life. So I didn’t have to take Malcolm in my arms which I
was happy about.

“
What are we waiting for?”
I asked Malcolm. “Sitting won’t help us.”