Demonworld (21 page)

Peter fired the revolver behind him as he ran. The others heard six tiny pops, high-pitched wheezes that fell into and were absorbed by the impenetrable wall of sound. Any of the hundreds of ghouls that were hit were consumed like droplets of water in the sea of doom.

Jules lagged behind, and everyone was too intent on their own panic-stricken flight to help him. Abandoned, his mind raced into dark places and he saw that the thing that came at them was like a god, a god born at the end of all worlds, a crushing weight of irrational hunger intent on senseless annihilation. He saw the others draw ahead of him. He cried out, but his voice was lost in the endless scream, the pounding feet. First a sharp finger touched his back, then a thousand pounds of entropy slammed into him, pushed him down, then the rushing legion crushed his body and passed over him.

The four saw light ahead. They burst out of the forest and came to a wide, rocky flatland nestled between the arms of tiered gray stone that lay at the feet of the mountains. The frozen sun was suspended overhead in the blindingly blue sky of another world. A wide, rectangular tunnel lay far ahead.

Between them and the entrance to the mines, a cold, shallow pool sliced across the flatland. Six ghouls and their chieftain stood in the pool like decaying statues, waiting for the humans. The four humans ran straight for them, more from fear of the horde behind them than from bravery. Marlon stood at the edge of the water, aimed down the barrel of the shotgun, then blasted thunder into the large chieftain; in a violent explosion the ghoul’s face and neck disappeared and his body fell into the water. Marlon aimed again and, in one blast, obliterated two ghouls and crippled a third. While he reloaded, Wodi leaped into the water and ran the black spear through the guts of one ghoul. To his surprise the ghoul clutched the spear and twisted away. Wodi could not free the spear before another ghoul was upon him. He unsheathed the sword of the dogman pup and brought it up into the newcomer’s jaw, shattering the chin and roof of the mouth. By the time he dispatched the newcomer, the other one had already splashed and staggered its way into the deep end of the pool, taking the black spear with it.

It threw its life away and took the spear!
Wodi thought.
They’re possessed! This is some kind of trap!

Wodi turned back and saw Iduna standing over the last ghoul’s body, out of breath, the bloody spear of the doctor shaking in her hand. Peter stood behind her reloading his revolver, fingers twitching uncontrollably. From the corner of his eye he caught movement at the base of the mountains. There was no time to warn anyone, for just then the horde broke through the forest. The horrible drone of their screaming echoed from the stone so that a high, cold whine rang out, breaking and echoing in a thousand layers of ululating madness.

The four slogged through the pool, then pulled themselves onto the stone floor. They raced to the tunnel entrance. Lone ghouls ran from either side to slow them down; Marlon bashed them aside with the butt of his gun and Wodi chopped them down with his sword. Only Iduna looked back to see the horde crashing into the pool behind them, sometimes even trampling their own.

“
God dammit!” Marlon shouted suddenly, and pushed Peter to sway their path off to the right. Wodi looked at the entrance and saw another wave of white heads pouring out of the tunnel entrance, white limbs shivering, intent on crushing the humans between the other wave. The four ran between slabs of cut stone. Marlon saw other, smaller entrances cut along tiered paths that led up the face of the mountain.

Marlon led them through the path of stones, then Wodi dashed ahead, intent on cutting a path if necessary. As he rounded a bend he saw a clan of crouching ghouls guarding one of the rising paths, their smiling heads nearly touching the ground beneath their bent knees. They rose and Wodi fell back, choking on a warning to the others. Marlon crashed into him and nearly knocked him over, then raised the shotgun.

“
Eat this!” he cried. Hell poured from the barrel, the deafening blast like a thunder god giving birth, sending up skin and bone and gallons of black blood into the air and against the rock wall. Marlon swung about and blasted again, smearing the remainder of the pack in a brilliant shower. As he reloaded, Wodi raced ahead again, executing the crippled survivors with his sword. “Keep moving!” Marlon shouted, and they raced up the narrow, gore-drenched path cut into the mountainside.

They raced up the side of the mountain until they came to a sharp bend ahead of them. On the flatlands far below they could see an endless throng of white monsters, a sea of white heads packed in tight, mouths wide in adrenalin-ecstasy. Just as Marlon chanced a look behind to see if any were gaining on them, a trap was sprung: While a dozen or more ghouls came around the bend ahead of them, others rose up from hiding places on ledges above them and slid down to meet them, scrambling and cackling.

Marlon turned to the slathering pack ahead of them and unleashed a blast from the shotgun that liquefied the lead killers. Peter shot dead one of the ghouls above, who fell and rolled into the path, then toppled into the throng below, but the other ghouls fell on them rapidly. Wodi became a slow, brutal whirlwind, hacking and chopping limbs on all sides. Peter watched, looked for an opening to shoot, and just then a ghoul collided with him and sent him spinning. He hit the ground and watched in horror as both ghoul and gun toppled over the side. He crawled to the edge and stared into the writhing mass, wishing that he had fallen with the gun.

Marlon emptied round after round into the bend as ghouls poured out before them. His bag of ammo became lighter and, as he fought to reload the gun as quickly as possible, three rounds spilled out. Peter crouched on his hands and knees, unable to move, and watched as Wodi tore away from his attackers and dived after the fallen shotgun shells. That action saved his life: Peter watched as one last ghoul slid from the mountainside, leaped over the space where Wodi had been, and then crashed directly into Iduna. Both Iduna and the ghoul flew from the narrow path.

Peter was overcome with horror as he watched the throng below. Iduna disappeared among them. He saw only thrashing limbs coated in red. He felt a struggle on his back, turned, and saw a ghoul with teeth clattering mere inches from his face. In a flash the boy Wodi was on them both. Smeared with blood and face twisted by rage, the boy jerked the ghoul from Peter’s back and chopped over and over again with his heavy, dull blade. Peter could only watch, deafened by shotgun round after round, as Wodi’s blade became hung up in the ghoul’s thick skull. Both ghoul and blade fell over the side. Though he could see the Wodi was exhausted, the boy still grabbed him by the arm and hauled him to his feet.

Wodi pulled the three shotgun shells from his pocket and gripped them in his fist, knuckles turning white. Peter knew that the boy would die before he would drop the precious rounds, and he hated himself for losing his only weapon.

Marlon finally stopped firing and they could see that the bend in the path ahead was coated in steaming gore, as if the earth itself had been fatally wounded. Wodi tapped Marlon’s back and they stumbled through the slippery path of twisted limbs and open stomachs. Ahead, on a broad terrace, they saw a small opening into the mountain. They knew that ghouls must be filling up the path behind them and so, when a handful of ghouls crept from the opening before them, Marlon blasted them and they filed inside without pause.

Marlon crouched and leaned against the wall and, as Wodi and Peter filed past, he shouted something. Wodi was deaf but watched Marlon’s lips repeat, “Light those torches! Light those torches!”

Wodi pulled the torches from Peter’s back and they knelt and Peter struck the flint to light a mass of them. Ghouls streamed into the entrance behind them; Marlon fired, limbs bounced and blood splattered. Again and again Peter struck the flint. Again and again Marlon fired at the ghouls that crawled over the dead. Again and again the spark of the shotgun blinded them, then darkness enveloped them as the dead clogged up the narrow entrance and shut out the light. Wodi saw a nightmarish scene of the narrow entrance packed with biting heads, red limbs twitching, reaching out, then he felt heat beside him. The torches were lit.

Wodi took one, then tapped Marlon’s shoulder. With one final blast that opened up several maggot-eaten heads into a spray of broken eggs, Marlon rose, took one of the torches, then the three survivors ran deeper into the dark earth.

* * *

For a long time the three descended a man-made tunnel supported by thick wooden arches. The torchlight danced along cold black walls and soon they could see their own breath in the freezing air. No words were spoken. Each was locked in his own thoughts, unwilling to confront the nightmare they had just come through. They found no sign of ghouls in the earth, only branching tunnels and endless darkness. Still, they felt as if they had not yet woken up, and that the nightmare was not over.

They came to a low, wide natural cavern that looked like a great mouth punctuated by teeth of stone. Cold droplets of water clung to their skin and dropped from the ceiling, sputtering in their torches. They saw that it was a nexus where many smaller tunnels met, each marked by a sign. Entering, they saw a simple wooden bridge spanning a dark gorge in the middle of the cavern. Wodi took the lead, thinking to scout out the place, and something brittle cracked underfoot. They held their torches low to examine, then pulled back in horror.

One great field of bones stretched before them.

Ribs and femurs pointed towards the black sky. Grinning, black-eyed skulls, all twins in death, collected dust and bat droppings. Tiny finger bones crunched underfoot as they walked. They saw that heads and spines had been lined along either side of the bridge, a sign that the unbelievable nightmare that had claimed so many of their kind had not been without an intelligence of its own. But the fact that many bins of coal and glinting metal were overturned and laid unclaimed among the bones proved that the nightmare intelligence was utterly alien and uninterested in the affairs that drove humans. Wodi felt nauseous and his own words earlier in the day came back to haunt him. Standing among the bones and imagining their endless night opened his eyes: His species already was at war, at war against something black and soulless, cold and hungry, and if the people of Haven hid behind their ring of mountains and lived in a fantasy then surely they could not be blamed.

They stepped onto the aging wooden bridge. It was no more than a dozen feet long, a few feet wide, and it buckled in the middle. Wodi stopped in the middle and looked over the side. A pool of black water glimmered below. Something splashed within, then there was a spark of phosphorescence. Wodi saw a school of pale, glowing fish. Drifting through the black, they seemed like outcast stars floating free in a lawless cosmos.

Just then, purple light shone from a tunnel up ahead. Marlon aimed the shotgun, but the source was still too distant. His vision was speckled with tracers of light, but as he peered into the dark he thought he could see two empty black eyes peering back at him, unmoving. Peter’s hands shook and his torch cast maddening, dancing shadows.

At that moment, as Wodi realized that Marlon was staring into a purple light in the tunnel ahead, the bridge bucked and a vicious reptilian head rose at Wodi. Scared witless, Wodi leaped back and stumbled as Serpens Rex climbed over the side. Wodi waved his arms about and fell over the side. He heard a scuffle, shouting, saw a torch fly free, the shotgun roared, then he hit the cold water and his torch died beside him. The water was not deep and Wodi’s back hit hard earth; always he kept his left hand upraised, kept the shotgun shells dry, the ammunition that he’d clutched desperately the entire time.

As he struggled to rise he heard a terrible roar, then saw a body fall from the bridge and hit the water on the far side. More scuffling, then the shotgun flew over his head and slapped into the water. He slogged away from the bridge, desperate for speed that would not come, then grasped the shotgun. He was filled with confusion, awful and wrenching. He did not know if the others were alive or dead and, in a moment of soul-crushing cowardice, he turned away from the bridge and ran through the freezing water deeper into the tunnel.

He was lost in darkness and raked his knuckles against the wall to his left as he ran. He felt a ledge and climbed up. His knuckles hit wood and he knew that he was in another man-made tunnel. He staggered to his feet, then heard splashing and the agonized hiss of Serpens Rex not far behind. With shaking hands he fumbled at the shotgun, popped it open, then withdrew two spent shells. He placed two of his shells inside, then clutched the other in his left hand. He took in deep panic breaths as the reptilian horror slogged through the water behind him.

He knew that he would have to get close if his shots were going to count, but the idea of approaching either one of the horrors was unthinkable. For one moment he thought of turning the gun, of escaping the nightmare as quickly as possible –

At that moment the purple light flared far ahead of him. He saw the bulbous white face, the empty black eyes, the long and twisted limbs. It was the demon he’d met so long ago, the demon who stood at the doorway of his nightmare since the nightmare had first begun. Without thinking he aimed and fired. The gun bucked wildly in his hands and the demon staggered backwards and bumped into a wall.