Patriot (A Jack Sigler Continuum Novella) (12 page)

But King wasn’t paying attention. Instead, he stood from his crouched hiding position, and was moving directly into the clearing. Toward the seven oddly shaped shrubs from which the dinosaur had been feeding. “Finkle, over here.”

He heard the old scientist climbing out from the wooded blind they’d used to spy on the creature, but he didn’t wait for the man. Instead, he brushed away a few of the stray leaves growing on a cluster of vibrantly green vines over the shrub. He let out a low whistle at what he saw.

Finkle came up next to him and came to an abrupt halt. “Is…is that what I think it is?”

King nodded. “Looks like our British friends beat us here,” he said. “And suffered the same fate as Mr. Spratt.”

20

Finkle stared at the macabre sight in front of him. Each of the seven shrubs had, at one time, been living, breathing human beings. From the tattered remains of what was left of their clothing, King was right. They had been British. Soldiers. God-fearing servants of King George. Now, they were like petrified, vegetative statues. More plant than anything else. Their skin had been ripped apart as tendrils of vines had encapsulated them, wrapping them in a living, photosensitive cocoon. Their extremities were almost wooden, still clutching their muskets with both branch-like hands. Their upper arms, torsos and heads were thick with vines, leaves and oddly colored flowers.

The flowers were more unsettling than anything, as the winter months were fast approaching. Even in Florida, plants didn’t typically flower after the early part of May. So why were these poor unfortunate souls covered in them?

“Saints preserve us,” Reardon said, as he approached the shrubs. “They’re just like…”

“Spratt,” Finkle answered. “We know.”

“But how is it happening? What is causing this?”

King shrugged. “Not sure. But this is the third weird thing going on around here. Between the vines, the plastic figurine and the…er, creature we just saw, there is definitely something strange happening. And I have a feeling it’s tied directly to this ‘Fountain’ you’re looking for.”

“Could it be the witch’s doing?” Finkle asked.

“I don’t think so. Don’t think she’s had enough time to set any of this in motion.” King pointed down at the ground a few feet away from the shrubs. “But she’s been here. There are her tracks. Looks like she’s turned southwest.”

“So what do we do now?” Finkle asked.

“Same thing we were already doing. We need to track Asherah and stop her. We just need to make one little alteration to the plan.”

“What’s that?” asked Reardon.

“Be mindful of the vegetation.”

The three of them glanced around, taking in the thick walls of cypress and live oak, and the vast river cane breaks surrounding them. Their eyes scanned the thick, hanging strands of moss drooping from tree limbs, and the palmetto bushes blocking even the slightest trace of a path in every direction.

“That might be more difficult than it sounds,” Finkle said, wiping a stream of sweat from his forehead.

“No kidding,” King answered, before pulling his sword from its sheath, and slicing a path for the crew to follow.

Day 5

King struggled to breathe as he sat, cross-legged, in his bedding. No matter how much he struggled, he couldn’t keep his hands from shaking at the memories flooding through his mind’s eye. It had been nearly thirty minutes since he’d awakened, dripping in his own sweat. Still the experience had left him drained—despite his remarkable recuperative powers.

The day before, the expedition had finally broken away from the tributaries and come to the main body of the St. Johns River. Two more of the crew had succumbed to the strange vegetative transformation since they’d left the clearing with the human shrubbery, and one more man had been scratched and was currently under the watchful eye of the closest thing to a surgeon the crew had, the cook named Nichols.

They’d set up camp the night before and tried to rest, but the entire crew had been disturbed by grisly dreams from their pasts. Their worst moments, relived in vivid recollection, in a steady fit of REM sleep. King, apparently, had not been immune either. The faded memories of hundreds, if not thousands of souls, bleeding out as a result of his own sword, had played over and over in his dream state. The final image—the woman he loved, Sara, albeit an older one than he remembered, dying in his arms.

“O’Leary and Quinton won’t wake up,” Finkle said solemnly, from over King’s shoulder. The old scientist looked as if he’d aged a decade overnight. Apparently, he too, had felt the brunt of a fitful night of terrors.

“What do you mean, they won’t wake up?”

“Just as it sounds. They’re breathing. Quinton’s hair’s gone snow white. Both their eyes are wide open, but they won’t budge. They don’t even blink. It’s the damndest thing.”

King looked up at Finkle. “Let me guess. Your nightmares—you were reliving the most brutal portions of your life. Right?”

“You, too?”

King nodded. “So that’s the fourth oddity we’ve faced since entering this jungle,” he said. “And the third having to do with Time.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Think about it. First was the army man figurine. That’s from the future.” King ignored the questioning glance Finkle gave him. “Then the dinosaur. From the past. Now, the dreams. Reliving moments from our past…and if I’m not mistaken, some scenes from our future as well.”

“They were just dreams, Jack. Nothing more than that.”

“Nightmares. From all accounts, every single one of us had them, except the few left as lookouts, and Nichols. But these weren’t typical nightmares. There were no boogeymen in them. No monsters under the bed. There was no trying to run away, only to be caught in slow motion.”

Finkle let out a half-hearted chuckle. “Your language continues to vex me so, my boy.”

“My point is, these dreams weren’t over-dramatized, surreal impressions of past events in our lives. If yours were like mine, they played out perfectly with history. There were no exaggerations. No metaphorical misrepresentations. They were perfect, play-by-play recollections of things that have happened to us in the past.”

Finkle seemed to consider this for a moment before giving a brief nod. “I suppose you’re right. But what does it mean?”

A blood-curdling scream erupted amid the shaken, weary sailors, interrupting King’s and Finkle’s conversation. A man leapt up from his bedding, facing to the north. His eyes were wild with terror.

“Da? It’s not my fault,” the sailor said. “I didn’t mean to break it.”

Finkle stepped forward, about to go to the man’s aid, but King’s strong hand stopped him. “Wait. Let’s see what happens.”

The sailor stepped back, raising one arm above his face. “Please, Da! I’m sorry!”

“Who’s he talking…”

That was when they both saw it. A spectral figure ambled toward the disturbed sailor. Though near transparent, the figure was human shaped—a large, robust man with a cruel, angry face.

“Da, please, no!”

“W-what are we seeing here?” Finkle asked. “A ghost?”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s something else entirely.”

Without warning, the transparent man raised a hand up and brought it down across the stricken sailor’s face. The impact, loud enough to be heard from a hundred feet away, knocked the sailor to the ground.

“That’s definitely no ghost!” King dashed forward, as the phantasm pressed in for another attack. It was about to strike the fallen man again, just as King’s body slammed into it. A sudden arc of blue electricity ripped through the air where they met, sending a violent jolt through every muscle in King’s body. Screaming, he fell to the ground, near the trembling sailor. King felt every single hair on his scalp, arms and legs stand on end as he sucked in a powerfully deep breath to force away the pain. When he looked up, the figure was gone.

“What, pray tell, was that?” Reardon asked, as he trotted up to King.

But King ignored him, and instead moved over to the still tearful sailor. “Are you all right?”

“I-I’m so sorry, Da! I didn’t mean to drop your whiskey. It was an accident.” The sailor’s bloodshot eyes stared off past King’s shoulder, as if the apparition was still as visible as it had been seconds before. A trail of tears washed away the dirt and grime covering the sailor’s cheeks as he sobbed. The half-cleaned face now revealed a bright red and blue bruise, just below his left eye. Evidence of the blow he’d sustained. “The bottle just slipped outta my hand. I did’na mean for it to happen.”

King looked around the campsite. Several—over half, if he wasn’t mistaken—of the crew were packing up their things, and running into the jungle in the direction where they’d laid anchor.

“Wait!” Reardon shouted. “Come back here, ye cowards!”

But it was too late. One by one, the crew members disappeared into the vegetation carrying whatever they could. Now, only a handful remained, and most of them were wide-eyed—possibly paralyzed in place by fear.

“‘Tis mutiny!” Reardon fumed. “Plain and simple. I’ll see them hang if it’s…”

“Captain!” King growled. “Calm down. Your man here needs to be tended to. We’ll deal with your crew later.”

Reardon nodded, then helped King lift the man from the ground. They dragged him over to one of the few remaining bed rolls left in camp. Carefully, they lowered him onto the makeshift bed, just as Nichols rushed over with a bucket of water and clean rag.

“I’ll tend to him, Captain,” he said, dipping the rag in the water and brushing it across the sailor’s forehead.

A few minutes later, Reardon, Finkle, Greer and King huddled around the campfire, talking in hushed tones so that the remaining crew members couldn’t hear what was being said.

“…so if that wasn’t a ghost, what was it?” Finkle asked. The lines across his forehead were furrowed, and King couldn’t tell if it was from frustration or from fear.

“All right. So far, we’ve experienced some pretty unusual activity since coming to Florida.” King began counting off on his fingers. “First, there are the vines. We don’t know what’s causing them, but they seem to be infecting us somehow. Turning us into…well, I’m not entirely sure. Second, we have the plastic figurine from my childhood.”

“There’s that toy again!” Quartermaster Greer spat. “Why do you keep bringing it up? Compared to what we’ve seen, that’s the least of our troubles.”

“If you’d let me finish,
Englishman
, I’ll explain why it’s so important.” King glared at the quartermaster, causing Greer to shrink against his shoulders. “After the figurine, Finkle and I saw a creature that hasn’t existed in millions of years.” Greer opened his mouth to say something, but was instantly silenced by a warning glance from King. “And finally, this ‘ghost’ thing we all just witnessed. Only, I don’t believe it was a ghost. As a matter of fact, when your man…”

“Jenkins. Robert Jenkins,” Reardon said.

“When your man, Jenkins, gets himself under control, I’m betting we’ll learn that the apparition was his father. Even more, I have a feeling Jenkins’s father isn’t even dead. I’ve got nothing substantial to prove that, mind you. Just a feeling.”

“So you’re saying he was attacked by the ghost of his father, who’s still living?” Finkle asked. “How is that possible? A demon, maybe? Disguised as his father?”

King shook his head. “There have been at least four unexplained phenomena we’ve witnessed in the past few days. Of those four, one—the vines—is the odd man out. The other three have one common characteristic.”

“And that is?”

“Time, gentlemen. The commonality is Time.”