Black (50 page)

A clear jar containing about a dozen pieces of fruit sat against the far wall. Some bread. Good. He closed the door and returned upstairs.

Rachelle and Johan still slept, and Tom decided to leave them to their sleep as long as he could. He walked over to the main doors and put an ear to the wood again.

He listened for a full minute this time. Nothing.

He eased the bolt open and cracked the door, half expecting to hear a sudden flurry of black wings. Instead, he heard only the slight creak of the hinges. The morning air remained absolutely still. He pushed the door farther open and cautiously peered around. He squinted in the bright light and quickly scanned the village for Shataiki.

But there were none. He held his breath and stepped out into putrid morning air.

The village was deserted. Not a soul, living or dead, occupied the once lively streets. There were no dead bodies as he had expected. Only patches of blood that had soaked the ground. Nor were there Shataiki perched on the rooftops, waiting for him to leave the safety of the Thrall. He twisted to look at the Thrall's roof, thinking of the scratching during the night. Still no bats.

But where were the people?

Apparently even the animals had been chased from the valley. The buildings no longer glowed. The entire village looked as though it had been covered by a great settling of gray ash.

“What happened?” Rachelle and Johan stood dumbstruck.

“It went dark inside,” Johan said, staring past Tom with wide eyes.

He was right; the wood inside had lost its glow as well. It must have been somehow affected by the air he had let in when he opened the door. He turned back to the scene before him.

Tom felt nauseated. Scared. His pulse beat steady and hard. Had evil entered him somehow, or was it just out here in this physical form? And what about the others?

“It's all changed!” Rachelle cried. She grabbed Tom's arm with a firm, trembling grip. Frightened? She'd known caution before. But fear? So she, too, felt the effects of the transformation even without being torn to shreds.

“What . . . what happened to the land?” Johan asked.

The meadows surrounding the village were now black. But the starkest change in the land was the forest at the meadow's edge. The trees were all charred, as though an immense fire had ravaged the land.

Black.

For a long time they stood still, frozen by the scene before them. Tom looked to his left where the path snaked over scorched earth toward the lake. He placed his arms around Johan and Rachelle.

“We should go to the lake.”

Rachelle looked at him. “Can't we eat first? I'm starving.”

Her eyes. They weren't green.

He lowered his arm and swallowed. The emerald windows to her soul were now grayish white. As though she'd contracted an advanced case of cataracts.

It took every ounce of his composure not to jump. He stepped back cautiously. Her face had lost its shine and her skin had dried. Tiny lines were etched over her arms.

And Johan—it was the same with him!

Tom turned around and looked at his own arm. Dry. No pain, just bone dry. The nausea in his gut swelled.

“Eat? Don't you want to go to the lake first?”

He waited for a response, afraid to face them. Afraid to look into their eyes. Afraid to ask whether his eyes were also gray saucers.

They weren't responding. See, they were afraid too. They'd seen his eyes and were stunned to dumbness. They stood on the steps of the Thrall, ashamed and silent. Tom certainly felt—

He heard a loud smacking sound and spun around, fearing bats. But it wasn't bats. It was Rachelle and Johan. They'd descended the steps and were stuffing some fruit he hadn't seen into their mouths.

Whose fruit? Everything else here appeared to be dead.

Teeleh's .

“Wait!” He took the steps in long leaps, rushed over to Rachelle, and ripped the fruit from her mouth.

She whirled around and struck him, her hand flexed firm and her fingers curved to form a claw. “Leave me!” she snarled, spewing juice.

Tom staggered in shock. He touched his cheek and brought his hand away bloody. Rachelle snatched up another fruit and shoved it into her mouth.

He shifted his gaze to Johan, who ignored them totally. Like a ravenous dog intent on a meal, he greedily chewed the flesh of a fruit.

Tom backed to the steps. This couldn't be happening. Not to Johan, of all people. Johan was the innocent child who just yesterday had walked around the village in a daze, lost in thoughts about diving into Elyon's bosom. And now this?

And Rachelle. His dearest Rachelle. Beautiful Rachelle, who could spend countless hours dancing in the arms of her beloved Creator. How could she have so easily turned into this snarling, desperate animal with dead eyes and flaking skin?

A flurry of wings startled Tom. He spun his head to the blackened entrance of the Thrall. Michal sat perched on the railing.

“Michal!”

Tom bounded up the steps. “Thank goodness! Thank goodness, Michal! I . . .” Tears blurred his vision. “It's terrible! It's . . .” He turned to Rachelle and Johan, who were making quick work of the fruit scattered below.

“Look at them!” he blurted out, flinging an arm in their direction. “What's happening?” Even as he said it, he felt a sudden desire to cool his own throat with the fruit.

Michal stared ahead, regarding the scene serenely. “They are embracing evil,” he said quietly.

Tom felt himself begin to calm. The fruit looked exactly like any fruit they'd eaten at a table set by Karyl. Intoxicating, sweet. He shivered with growing desperation. “They've gone mad,” he said in a low voice.

“Perceptive. They're in shock. It won't always be this bad.”

“Shock?” Tom heard himself say it, but his eyes were on the last piece of fruit, which both Rachelle and Johan were heading for.

“Shock of the most severe nature,” Michal said. “You've tasted the fruit before. Its effect isn't so shocking to you, but don't think you're any different from them.”

Johan reached the fruit first, but his taller sister quickly towered over him. She put one hand on her hip and shoved the other at the fruit. “It's mine!” she screamed. “You have no right to take what is mine. Give it to me!”

“No!” Johan screamed, his eyes bulging from a beet-red face. “I found it. I'll eat it!” Rachelle leaped on her younger brother with nails extended.

“They're going to kill each other,” Tom said. It occurred to him that he was actually less horrified than amused. The realization frightened him.

“With their bare hands? I doubt it. Just keep them away from anything that can be used as a weapon.” The Roush looked at them with a blank stare. “And get them to the lake as soon as you can.”

Rachelle and Johan separated and circled each other warily. From the corner of his eyes, Tom saw a small black cloud approaching. But he kept his eyes on the fruit in Johan's fist. He really should run down there and take the fruit away himself. They'd eaten more than enough. Right?

Tom cast a side glance at Michal. The Roush had his eyes on the sky. “Remember, Thomas. The lake.” He leaped into the air and swept away.

“Michal?” Tom glanced at the sky that had interested the Roush.

The black cloud swept in over blackened trees. Shataiki!

“Rachelle!” he screamed. These black beasts terrified him more now than they had in the black forest.

“Rachelle!” He bounded down the stairs and seized first Rachelle and then Johan by their arms, nearly jerking them from their feet. He glanced at the skyline, surprised at how close the Shataiki had come. Their shrieks of delight echoed through the valley.

Rachelle and Johan had seen, too, and they ran willingly. But their strength was gone, and Tom had to practically drag them up the stairs into the Thrall. Even with Rachelle finally pulling free and stumbling up the steps on her own, they just managed to flop into the dark Thrall and shove the doors closed when the first Shataiki slammed into the heavy wood. Then they came, shrieking and beating, one after another.

Tom scrambled back, saw the door was secure, and dropped to his seat, panting. Rachelle and Johan lay unmoving to his right. He had no idea how to follow Michal's last request. It would be hard enough to sneak undetected to the lake by himself. With Rachelle and Johan in their present catatonic state, it would be impossible.

Neither of them stirred in the Thrall's dim light. The once brilliant green floor was now a dark slab of cold wood. The tall pillars now towered like black ghosts in the shadows. Only the weak light filtering in through the still-translucent dome allowed Tom to see at all.

He rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. The Shataiki still slammed unnervingly against the door, but the period between hits began to lengthen. He doubted they could find a way to break into the building. But it wasn't the Shataiki he feared most at the moment. No, it was the two humans at his feet who sent shivers up his spine. And himself. What was happening to them?

The fruit in
the storage room. Tom scrambled to his feet and pounded down the steps. Had the air destroyed that fruit as well? Actually, now that he thought about it, the fruit in the forest had dropped to the ground as he ran by, but it hadn't turned black. Not right away.

He slammed into the door and pulled up. This door had been closed before they'd opened the main Thrall doors. If he opened it, would the air that now filled the Thrall destroy the fruit?

He would have to take that chance. He threw the door open, stepped in, and slammed it behind him. The jar stood against the far wall. He bounded over, grabbed one fruit out, and immediately stuffed rags in the top. He had no clue if this would work, but nothing else came to mind.

Tom lifted the one red fruit up and blew out a lungful of air.

Bad air,
he thought.
Too late.

The fruit didn't wilt in his hand. How long would it last?

He shoved the fruit into his mouth and bit deep. The juice ran over his tongue, his chin. It slipped down his throat.

The relief was instantaneous. Gentle spasms ran through his stomach. Tom dropped to his knees and tore into the sweet flesh.

He'd eaten half the fruit before remembering Rachelle and Johan. He grabbed an orange fruit from the jar, stuffed the rag back into its neck, and tore up the stairs.

Rachelle and Johan still lay like limp rags.

He slid to his knees and rolled Rachelle onto her back. He placed the fruit directly over her lips and squeezed. The skin of the orange fruit split. A trickle of juice ran down his finger and spilled onto her parched lips. Her mouth filled with the liquid and she moaned. Her neck arched as the nectar worked into her throat. In a long, slow exhale, she pushed air from her lungs and opened her eyes.

Eyeing the fruit in Tom's hand with a glint of desperation, she reached up, snatched the fruit, and began devouring. Tom chuckled and pressed his half-eaten fruit into Johan's mouth. The moment the young boy's eyes flickered open, he grabbed the fruit and bit deeply. Without speaking they ravenously consumed flesh, seeds, and juice.

If Tom wasn't mistaken, some color had returned to their skin, and the cuts they had sustained during their argument were not as red. The fruit still had its power.

“How do you guys feel?” he asked, glancing from one to the other. They both stared at him with dull eyes. Neither spoke.

“Please, I need you with me here. How do you feel?”

“Fine,” Johan said. Rachelle still did not respond.

“We have more, maybe a dozen or so.”

Still no response. He had to get them to the lake. And to do that he had to keep himself sane.

“I'll be right back,” he said. He left them cross-legged on the floor and returned to the basement, where he ate another whole fruit, a delicious white nectar he thought was called a sursak.

Eleven left. At least they weren't spoiling as quickly as he'd feared. If Rachelle and Johan showed any further signs of deterioration, he would give them more, but there was no guarantee they would find any more. They couldn't waste a single one.

The next few hours crept by with scarcely a word among them. The attacks at the door had stopped completely. Tom tried his patience with futile attempts to lure them into discussing possible courses of action now that they had found a temporary haven from the Shataiki. But only Johan engaged him, and then in a way that made Tom wish he hadn't .

“Tanis was right,” Johan bit off. “We should have launched a preemptive expedition to destroy them.”

“Has it occurred to you that that's what he was doing? But it obviously didn't work, did it?”

“What do you know? He would have called
me
to go with him if he was going to battle. He promised me I could lead an attack! And I would have too!”

“You don't know what you're saying, Johan.”

“I wish we would have followed Tanis. Look where you got us!”

Tom didn't want to think where this line of reasoning would lead the boy. He turned away and broke off the conversation.

Two hours into the unbearable silence, Tom noticed the change in Rachelle and Johan. The gray pallor was returning to their skin. They grew more restless with each passing hour, scratching at their skin until it bled. In another hour, tiny flaking scales covered their bodies, and Johan had rubbed his left arm raw. Tom gave them each another fruit. Another one for him. They were now down to eight. At this rate, they wouldn't last the day.

“Okay, we're going to try to make it to the lake.”

He grabbed both by their tunics and helped them to their feet. They hung their heads and shuffled to the back entrance without protesting. But there didn't seem to be a drop of eagerness in them. Why so reluctant to return to the Elyon they once were so desperate for?

“Now, when we get outside, I don't want any fighting or anything stupid. You hear? It doesn't sound like there are any black bats out there, but we don't want to attract any, so keep quiet.”