Max Baker: Guardian of the Ninth Sector (5 page)

Max stood in the center of the dark city, scared and alone.  In the night sky ahead of him, two large red orbs hung where the moon should have been.  They illuminated the streets in a soft red hue.  They were large and gassy looking, like what Jupiter looked like in all of his science textbooks. 

The buildings that surrounded him looked old and abandoned.  The brick and mortar that held up the dark structures were decayed; chunks of concrete and rubble littered the ground around them.  Many of the buildings were accented by broken windows and doors falling out of their frames; some of the doorways sported unlit neon signs above them.  None of the buildings looked as if any sort of life resided within them.  Max doubted anyone had been there in years.  Litter and debris blew aimlessly up and down the street, pushed by a cold breeze that bit at Max’s face. 

He stood in the middle of the dark road wearing nothing more than a t-shirt and blue jeans.  Looking down at his bare feet, he asked himself why he would not have worn socks and shoes on a journey like this.  He crossed his arms and stood there shivering as he continued to observe the rest of his surroundings.  For some strange reason, he felt like he had been here before.

He began to walk down the deserted street, being careful not to step on the broken glass or other trash wandering around freely.  As he moved along the road, he noticed there were no cars lining the sidewalks.  He noticed that there were no lamp posts or road signs.  There were no trash cans.  There weren’t any yellow or white lines painted on the road. 

A piece of paper tumbled toward him.  It blew from left to right and stopped on occasion, finally crashing into Max’s leg and then falling limp at his feet.  He picked it up off of the ground and was confronted by an old man’s face staring back at him.  The face was one that Max did not wish to see again.  It was scarred and looked as if it had seen far too many battles and wars.  The man in the picture wore a long scar that extended from the top of his forehead, down through his right eye, and split through his cheek.  The man’s one good eye looked dark and devoid of anything good.  The other, the one that the scar ran through, was just a gray ball of emptiness.  Max had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he looked into the eyes of the man.  Underneath the picture was one word in all capital letters that read:

AUSIRIS

Max wasn’t sure what the word meant, but was sure it wasn’t good if it was associated with the man in the picture.  He let the paper fall back to the ground, and it began its tumbling act again, floating down the street until Max lost sight of it.

Max continued to walk down the street.  As he walked farther and farther, the buildings  became smaller and smaller and fewer and fewer, until he finally reached the edge of the city.  He stopped again in an attempt to familiarize himself with his surroundings.  Ahead of him was only the road, graced by the light of the two red giants hanging in the sky.  To Max’s left was an expansive field of darkness, filled with the shadows of a large forest.  To the right was the same.  Behind him the dark city lay quiet.

Max continued on the path for a while.  He tried to remember how he had ended up in the town.  He also tried to remember why he wasn’t wearing any shoes; his feet felt like icicles and were beginning to hurt with each step that he took.  Max walked for a long time, following the red glow of the twin globes ahead of him.  He marched quietly into the nothingness ahead of him.

Eventually he saw a faint white dot, far off in the distance, illuminating from the shadows ahead.  At first, he dismissed the light as being a star that was touching the horizon, but soon he realized the light was attached to a massive shadowed structure.  He quickened his pace, content that he was headed in the right direction.

As he grew closer to the light, the structure that supported it became more visible, and Max was able to make out the outline of a gigantic castle.  The light that he had seen was still shining faintly from an offset tower toward the rear of the castle.  He thought he could see a couple of other lights, but he was still too far away to know for sure.  He paused for a moment and sat down in the middle of the road.  His feet were now bleeding, and he could not walk more than a few steps at a time without wanting to cry out in pain.  As he sat in the darkness, picking the gravel from the open wounds of his feet, he heard footsteps behind him.

Max jumped to his feet and spun around only to catch a glimpse of a humongous, shadowed figure lumbering toward him.  Max could feel the blood drain from his face.  Two beady red eyes bounced back and forth with each step the man took toward him.  But it wasn’t a man…it was a monster.

His first instinct was to run, but Max’s legs suddenly felt like gelatin. His feet seemed to be firmly cemented into the ground.  He felt the blood rushing from his head, and he found it hard to breath.  Standing there, in the middle of the road, Max had to fight to keep from losing consciousness.

The approaching creature was at least two feet taller than any man Max had ever seen and a foot wider.  As it drew closer, Max could see it wore armor similar to knights depicted in the movies he had seen about Camelot and the Middle Ages.  Sleek black armor covered the figure’s shoulders, torso and legs. Pale red light reflected off of the suit.  It wore a large black helmet that covered its head and face.  Its arms were left exposed; even from this distance, Max could tell that they were abnormally hairy, perhaps covered in a thick black fur.  In one of its massive hands, the beast carried a steel sword swung over its broad shoulder. 

The mammoth must have spotted Max because it quickened its pace, hurrying toward him.  Max felt woozy and had to concentrate on keeping himself together.  He felt that at any moment his legs would give out on him and that he would melt through the ground.  His head felt so light that he was worried if he closed his eyes his body would lift off into the atmosphere.  He felt like his body would drift all the way back to Earth.

When the figure was within 10 feet from him, Max could make out the skulls that had been melded into the helmet; they didn’t look human.  They wrapped in both directions around the base of the helmet.  On the top of the helmet was a much larger skull with a blade carved into it.  It stopped just a couple feet short of Max and removed the morbid headpiece. 

It had a large head similar to a gorilla, but with the snout of a swine.  Its face was also covered in fur like its arms, but more thinly.  Its eyes were sunken deep into its face and bright red dots peered down at Max.  Deep scars ran across its face as if it had been hit with a mace.  The beast leaned toward Max, sniffing the air around him, and then it drew a step closer.

“Could it be true?” the creature asked in a deep growl.  “Could the Guardian really be standing here in Arressnia?”

“I-I-I don’t know,” Max stammered, his knees quivering as he spoke.

“Max Baker, you are not supposed to be here.”

He tried to respond but couldn’t.  His voice had become paralyzed much like his limbs.  The creature was eying him up and down – sizing him up.  He bared his teeth at Max, revealing several rows of sharp, pointy teeth that could easily chomp through bones.  For a moment, Max wondered if he was in Hell.  He wondered if these were the teeth that would do all of the gnashing that the Christian kids were always talking about at his school. 

The creature continued sniffing the air as it took another step toward him.  Max nearly gagged as he caught a whiff of the creature’s stink.  It smelled rancid like tuna fish that had been left inside a car on a summer’s day. 

“Who are you?” Max asked, surprising himself.  His voice was not as shaky as it had been the last time, and he felt some of the blood returning to his face.

“Who
I
am is of no importance to you, Max Baker,” the creature responded, taking one tinier step closer to Max.  They were only inches apart now, and Max turned his head to try and avoid the odor.  “The only thing that should concern you at this moment is whether or not I let you live…whether or not I choose to end this right here and now.”  He lifted the sword up off of its shoulder and let it swing into Max’s field of vision.  It was stained with blood and looked as if it had claimed many victims prior to this night.

Max took a small step backwards and held his hands up. “I just want to make sure that I am addressing you properly.  That’s all.”

The beast looked down at Max and laughed heartily.  It cocked its giant head back and howled at the red orbs above them.  “Let us assume that I don’t end your pathetic little life here and now.”  He continued to chuckle as he spoke.  “You may call me Gorthon, head general of the Arressnian army and chief advisor of Emperor Ausiris.”

Max wasn’t sure if it was the beast’s name that struck him as humorous, or if it was the erroneous title it had given itself, but he snickered in disbelief.  As soon as the laughter had left his mouth, he knew he had made a mistake.

“How dare you!” Gorthon roared.  Max couldn’t react quickly enough as the empty hand of Gorthon swung around; it was balled into a large fist and struck Max hard under the chin with enough power to lift him off his feet.  Max flew a couple of feet backwards before crashing to the ground.  He attempted to crawl away from the monster, but Gorthon advanced on his position.  He felt the giant hand wrap tightly around his neck and lift him off of the ground.  Max tried to gasp for air, but couldn’t; he felt the large paw tighten its stranglehold.  Gorthon let him dangle in midair, and Max kicked his feet wildly as he struggled to get away.

“I’m sorry,” Max was able to squeeze out, pulling fervently at the creature’s firm grip.

Gorthon examined Max for a moment and dropped him to the ground.  Max gasped for air, trying to catch his breath.  Above him, Gorthon laughed loudly again.  Max rolled backwards and hastily got to his feet.

“You are still so weak,” he laughed, his deep voice bellowing through the air.  “Evolution has been cruel to you.  Your kind should have at least developed a spine over the thousands of years of your useless existence.” 

Max didn’t offer a retort.  Instead he could feel his cheeks growing hot with anger.  For whatever reason, what this mammoth creature was saying was causing his blood to boil with resentment.  Gorthon shoved Max back down to the ground and walked past him in the direction of the castle.

“My Lord,” Gorthon shouted into the night air toward the castle, “this surely is not the boy that the prophecy of darkness has mentioned.  He is weak and dull-witted.  Allow me to rid you of this garbage.  Allow me to make a sacrifice for you, Dark Bringer, and for the Fallen One.”

There was no response from the darkness; however, Max’s hands began to illuminate blue again as they had when the stranger was chasing him.  He felt the adrenaline surging through his body.  His breath was rapid.  He could feel the blood being sucked into his heart from his veins and then forcefully ejected back out into his arteries.  He felt it with every beat.  He felt the neurons in his brains firing like pistons.  He felt his lungs rising and falling at a breakneck speed.  He felt an unusually strong energy flowing through his body.  In the middle of the road under this dark night sky, he felt it take over him.  He felt himself lose control.

“Hey, General Dumbass!” Max blurted out.

Gorthon spun around; his face resembled one of shock mixed with disbelief.  Max’s hands were radiating bright blue. They pulsated with every beat of his heart.  Max extended them out in front of him, pointing them toward the beast.  Gorthon’s beady eyes grew as big as saucers.

Bolts of blue lightning shot forth from Max’s hands and blasted into Gorthon’s massive body.  The creature was thrown 20 feet through the air. His massive body hung weightlessly in the air, and Max saw the ugly red eyes of the beast go black.  Finally, he crashed into the hard ground.  The momentum rolled Gorthon over once, and then twice, before coming to an abrupt stop.  Under the two red moons that hung low in the foreign sky, the beast laid there motionless. 

Max stood still, staring down at his hands as if they were some alien life form.  His hands were still glowing blue, but not as bright. The color gradually faded, returning his skin to its pink fleshy color.

In the distance, smoke rose from Gorthon’s body. An odor of burnt hair filled the air.  Max walked slowly toward the body.  He held his hands out in front of him, waiting for the beast to pop up at any moment, like a crazed serial killer at the end of a slasher movie. 

Gorthon didn’t move.