Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (7 page)

Several
other goliaths towered over Samuel as they approached the casket to pay their
final respects. Two men wore dark-green uniforms slathered in medals of various
sizes and shapes. They left the folded, triangular, American flag next to the
casket.

“Your gramps
fought like hell for his country in World War Two,” said the one man. The other
simply stood with a face of stone.

Samuel’s
mother patted her son on the head and bowed slightly to the uniformed man that
spoke.

More adults
came forward, each one speaking to Samuel’s mother through him and his limited
vocabulary.

That
little boy closed his eyes, and when he opened them, Major sat on the ground,
wrapping his wounds and staring at the tree line where the alpha male had disappeared.

***

“Are you hurt?”
Samuel asked.

Major shrugged.
“They bit me.”

“I hurt the alpha
male, but he ran away,” said Samuel.

“I know. It’s okay.
You and him ain’t done yet. At least that’s what I’ve heard.”

“From who?”

Major just
shrugged his shoulders and continued wrapping a strip of cloth around his left
wrist.

“We need to get
going and find the others,” said Samuel.

“I think we
bought ourselves some time.”

“How much?”

“Enough.”

Samuel nodded
as the last of his adrenaline subsided. He felt gnawing aches and pains coming
from everywhere. His eyes felt heavy, and his legs became pillars of stone.

“We’re staying
one more night,” he said.

“Seems like we
both need it, for whatever goes as a night from now on,” replied Major.

Samuel opened
the door and walked back into the cabin. He dropped his body to the bare board
on the bunk and fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter 7

Samuel awoke to
his own snores, the sound pulling him from an undisturbed rest, and he blinked
and stretched his arms. Dull pains came to life as a reminder of the combat
with the alpha male and his pack. He looked around the room. The chair sat
empty, pushed back under the ancient desk, and the few personal items that
Major had left on the floor were no longer there. Samuel stood and eased the
door of the cabin open. The trees, the skyline, and the forest all sat in
perfect silence. Not a single motion caught his attention. Samuel took a deep
breath and could not smell the pines. He stood over the corpses of the wolves,
inhaled, and again smelled nothing.

“Major!”

No reply.

He stared in
the direction the alpha male had left and then opposite it, in the direction he
assumed they had to travel. Again, not a single item in the locality moved. Samuel
tried to remember what Major had said about a reverting or a rewinding, but he
could not place it. Whatever it was had accelerated, and Samuel wondered how
long it would take before everything, including himself, would be forever
frozen in the solitary landscape. Before he could ponder that question, an item
on the ground near the cabin caught his eye: one that had not been there the
night before. He bent down and picked up a piece of paper, weathered and folded
in half. Samuel glanced to the horizon and noticed a slight puff of charcoal
that faded into deep obsidian. He felt the looming, endless night and shivered.

He unfolded the
piece of paper to reveal a strong, but flowery, handwritten script. He
recognized “Major” scribbled at the bottom, and he sat on the step of the cabin
to read it aloud.

“Samuel. I am
sure you find my sudden appearances and disappearances troubling. I’ll bet
you’re confused about this locality, this existence, this whole damn place. The
current Reversion is accelerating, much like the others I’ve experienced. I
know you’ve felt that. I am probably three to four days from rejoining you at
the Barren. The Barren is the remnants of a village. It could be a collection
of reflections. I’m not sure. Whatever it is, there are structures there like
the cabin. To get to the Barren, you’ll need to follow the path from the cabin
to the summit. Looking down into the valley, you’ll see a winding pass that
will take you through a wide marsh that eventually ends at the foot of another
mountain. You’ll see the peak from the summit of the hill above the cabin. Stay
on the path that will cut east around the base and take you to the opposite
side. The Barren sits there on a high plain surrounded by unattended wheat
fields. The cabins look like deer nestled in the grass from above. Wait there
for me. I’ve left you a scimitar in the desk drawer. If you stay on the path,
you won’t need it. Stay on the damn path. Until then, Major.”

Samuel shook
his hand and reread the note.

“What about the
alpha male?” he asked the dead air.

He stood and
went inside the cabin. Samuel reached into the desk and retrieved the scimitar
left for him by Major. The blade sparkled as if it had been sharpened,
polished, and oiled. The leather binding wrapped around the handle and provided
a solid grip. Samuel could not remember if he had seen Major using this knife
in the fight with the wolves. He tied the sheath to his right thigh, and the
top of it looped through his belt. Samuel tossed his few personal belongings
into the rucksack and wished he had a flashlight.

The framed
photograph hung on the wall in the same place it had for decades. The
undisturbed dust covering it spread out even and smooth. Samuel stepped forward
and brushed the dust from the surface as he had the first time he noticed it
hanging in the cabin. This time, however, there was no picture underneath the
glass. Held by the frame was nothing more than a black square. Samuel moved
closer to the surface of the glass, imagining his hand might push through it
and the wall, appearing on the outside of the cabin. Instead, his hand stopped.
The picture was gone like Major said it would be.

The
reflections aren’t as strong as the original, they don’t last long.

That’s
what Samuel remembered. He frowned and stepped back, deciding he did not care
much for the reflections. He cared even less for this locality.

***

He decided to
keep moving. When he looked down from the summit, he could no longer locate the
cabin. He struggled to find the path stretching out to the horizon and weaving
inside the trees. At a certain distance, the horizon melted the sky and the
earth together into a hazy cloud. The cloud was not moving as fast as a summer
thunderstorm, but it was clearly coming up from behind and swallowing the land
beneath it. Samuel told himself to visually mark its progress. As long as the Reversion
did not leap ahead, he could manage to stay ahead of it on the way to the
Barren. He laughed and shook his head, wondering if the Barren would provide a
safe haven or simply be the final destination to succumb to the end of this
place.

Samuel put the
summit behind him. He crept down the mountainside, switching back and forth on
the path in a constant descent. He lost sight of the horizon and the
perspective of direction, and hoped to remain focused on reaching the Barren,
and Major, and whatever stood beyond that. By the time Samuel reached the
valley floor, his muscles ached. He felt the sweat clinging to his clothes and
robbing his body of heat as the exertion slowed him down. He tipped his
forehead underneath his left arm and sniffed. His nose could not detect the
faintest scent.

Samuel had
walked a few hundred yards on the path stretching into the valley floor when
the landscape began to change. As he came down the mountain, the trees
reappeared in greater number and proximity. The trail narrowed until it was
barely wide enough for him to pass. The massive, deciduous trees gave way to
low-hanging weeping willows and their long trails of thin leaves. He identified
Spanish moss on the trunks of several, which confirmed that he had in fact
reached the marsh that Major had mentioned. Samuel drew a deep breath and
caught the slightest hint of brackish water and rotting vegetation. He drew
another to confirm it was real.

The Reversion
must unwind from one direction of the locality to the other,
he thought.

With the hope
that he was outpacing the ominous cloud approaching the summit, Samuel decided
to rest. He could no longer regulate day and night, as the light source in this
world had burnt out like an old incandescent bulb in a lonely room, spilling
the last feeble rays into eternal darkness. He laid the rucksack at his feet
and looked over a shoulder at a pile of loose branches near a rock. He gathered
them up and ran a hand over the surface, detecting a hint of moisture, but not
enough to keep it from burning. He was not sure if he was going to need the
light or the heat, but creating a fire for his camp felt like the right thing
to do. Samuel arranged the twigs in an A-frame design and removed the lighter
from his pocket. He had bent down low and rocked his thumb back on the flint
when a voice broke the heavy silence.

“I wouldn’t do
that if I were you.”

***

Samuel spun
around, expecting to see Major. He saw nothing but the faint outline of the
willows standing guard over the marsh. He shook his head and pulled his thumb
back again, this time sure he could ignore the phantom voice in his head.

“Don’t do that.”

Samuel turned
his head toward the voice. He watched as the outline of a human appeared to
rise from the marsh. Water dripped from the ends of patchy strings of hair as
the form walked toward Samuel. Strips of clothing that had once covered a body
with style dangled from pointed elbows and knees. It was not until the person
stood before Samuel that he was able to gaze upon the face.

The man stood
with the dying light reflecting off of his exposed bone. Clumps of white
covered his face where skin had once stretched over his skull. He had two black
holes for eyes, and his mouth was parted in a demonic grin.

“It speeds up
the Reversion. I don’t know why, but it does,” said the man standing before
Samuel.

“Okay,” replied
Samuel.

“I’m dead,”
said the man.

Samuel shifted
his legs and stood to face the man. He detected a whiff of decay, which disappeared
quickly. The flotsam from the marsh clung to the dead man’s frame like a cape
hung from bony shoulders.

“The dead don’t
speak. Or walk.”

“They do here.”

The dead man
moved toward the stack of twigs. He sat on the ground with a wet plop. His
hand, stripped of skin, motioned for Samuel to do the same.

“Let’s talk,”
he said.

Samuel nodded
and sat on the other side of the woodpile, never taking his eyes off the dead
man. “What should I call you?” he asked.

“I cannot reveal
my name yet,” replied the man. “You can call me whatever you want.”

Samuel nodded
again, but did not christen him with an identity.

“It must have
something to do with the changing form, you know. Wood, to fire, to ash. It’s
like an energy tide that rolls the darkening cloud faster toward the opposite
horizon.”

Samuel looked
at the lighter in his hand and dropped it back into a pocket.

“Are you
alone?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

Samuel sat
there and decided to let the dead man have what he needed from their
interaction. After a prolonged silence, the man spoke again.

“Do you know of
the Jains?” he asked.

Samuel shook
his head and thought about the sleep he craved. “No.”

The dead man
rocked backward and placed both bony hands on his knees.

“They were the
first, in your original locality, to come up with the idea of
ahimsa
. They
called themselves ‘the defenders of all beings.’ Do you know why?”

Samuel did not
reply, knowing the conversation would occur anyway.

“The Jains
believed in conquering desire as a way of achieving enlightenment. Enlightenment,
for them, was escaping the cycle of rebirth. Reincarnation was a curse to
avoid, not some type of immortality.”

“Sounds
Buddhist,” said Samuel.

“It is. Mahavira
and Buddha were contemporaries. But they are not the same.” The dead man paused
before continuing. “Because of their belief in the cycle of rebirth, Jains also
believed that every living thing had a soul. Not just intelligent creatures,
but the trees, birds, plants. Everything. So the pain man inflicts on other
living creatures is really the pain he inflicts on himself. ‘Many times I have
been drawn and quartered, torn apart, and skinned, helpless in snares and
traps, a deer. An infinite number of times I have been felled, stripped of my
bark, cut up, and sawn into planks’.”

“That’s not
possible. You can’t exist without destroying something else that is living,”
replied Samuel.

“You can if you
are not of the living.”

Samuel raised
his eyebrows.