Resurrection (21 page)

These men who inhabited these dark corners were sons and daughters of the Resurrected Ones. They lived in the Forbidden Places and hunted humans as food raiding villages without warning and taking and devouring little children who did not obey their parents.

“Well I don’t believe a bit of any of this, I say this whole thing is absurd,” Aaron said pulling his horse up beside Ethan’s

“Is that so Aaron, and just why would you say that? The Elder would not have sent us if the Angel had not foreseen the danger ahead,” Ethan said.

“The Red Angel, bah; has anyone ever seen her?”

“Well no but that is as it should be, her powers as a Seer could be diminished if she were not behind the veil; she has sacrificed herself for us. The Elder told us of her vision and also what we must do; I have faith things are as The Angel says they are.” 

“Faith, I have no faith in faith,” Aaron said sarcastically. “How about you Andrew you’ve been awful quiet back there.”

“I’m with Ethan,” Andrew said.

“Okay Aaron this is the deal, whether or not you believe in The Angel or her words does not matter, what matters is that you believe in this mission. We were called out, the three of us and if we are unable to count on you then you need to ride back home and let us two see this thing through; do I make myself clear?”

Aaron stopped his horse and let his brothers pass him by. “I never said I didn’t believe in the mission you know.” He called out before continuing along behind.

By sunset they were beyond the edge of the known world and at the cusp of the unknown, beyond this was the nameless and beyond that the Forbidden Places. They decided to stop for the night and begin fresh at daybreak.

“What do you think we’ll find out there?” Andrew said between bites of dried meat and hard biscuit.

Ethan tossed a stick into the campfire and thought about the question.

“Well I’m not sure; I don’t think anyone knows for certain what is out there.”

“I know what we’ll find gentlemen,” Aaron interrupted. “We’ll find out destinies,” He said laughing out loud and then he danced a little jig before lying down.

“Well thank you for that Aaron, but seriously I don’t know if the stories are true or not. They must have some truth to them almost all of the old tales contain some tidbits of the truth.”

“The man that we seek, how will we find him?” Andrew said.

“We won’t find him, he’ll find us, but he is merely the one to lead us to the one we truly seek.”

“How will he know we are looking for him?”

“Because the Angel told him of our coming and when we are close she will lead him to us. We will know that he is near when the moon turns to blood. Now let’s get some rest, we have a long journey ahead of us.”

“Ethan.”

“Yes Andrew.”

“How is the moon going to turn to blood?”

“I don’t know, I only know what the Elder told me and he said we will know when the moon bleeds.”

“I didn’t hear him tell you anything about bleeding moons or talking crickets for that matter. I didn’t hear him tell you anything much at all about this little quest of ours and I was right there with you,” Aaron said.

“It was revealed to me when he placed his hand upon my head.”

“So brother what other secrets are you keeping from us?”

“I’m not keeping anything from you Aaron you can be certain of that, the question is are you keeping anything from us?”

Chapter 51

The brothers awoke to a dense fog which surrounded them on all sides. The fog seemed to crawl along the ground as if it were a living thing; a wave of one’s hand sent it spinning this way and that.

“Do you hear that?” Aaron said nervously.

“Hear what Aaron?” Ethan said.

“Shhh, listen.”

From out of the fog came the sound of heavy hoof beats and the loud snorts of many horses. The sounds seemed to emanate from all around them one minute and then from only one direction the next.

They heard the jangling of spurs and the creaking of leather as the horses ran to and fro among the trees. The brothers hid behind a large pine tree and waited for whoever might be out there to enter their camp.

Ethan heard a the sound of a horse approaching to his right and turned in that direction and what he saw made his blood run cold. There shrouded in the fog was a horse and rider, the man was dressed from head to toe in leather, his matted hair flowed down over his massive shoulders and he carried with him a huge battle axe the handle of which was as long as Ethan was tall.

The man was huge as was the horse beneath him and it seemed to Ethan that the beast was twice the size of their own mounts. The horse snorted and an immense cloud of vapor erupted from its enormous nostrils. The rider tilted his head back and a loud growling roar emanated from his mouth. The sound shook the air and boomed off the trees and frightened the brothers terribly.

“They’re giants!” Ethan said to himself in an almost too loud voice.

At that moment Andrew turned and saw the man and beast just as he spurred his horse and rode away. The horses massive hooves kicked up large clods of wet grass and soft earth into the air as it sped away.

And then the sounds faded into the mist joined by a chorus of dogs barking and howling in the distance. The brothers were stunned by the encounter.

“What was that Ethan?” Aaron said.

“Yeah what was that?” Andrew added.

“I don’t know all I know is that it was the most colossal beast I have ever seen.” Ethan said.

“Well one thing is for certain,” Aaron said. “We know those things are out there and we are certain to meet up with them again.”

By the afternoon they had left the forest behind and trees now only stood in clusters where there was plentiful underground moisture. The grass here grew waist high to a man and concealed many small animals and birds which either ran or flew away as the horses approached their hiding places.

“I think it’s time to get us something besides those dried biscuits to eat; look,” Ethan said pointing.

In the distance among a group trees a small herd of pronghorn waited out the heat of the afternoon sun. Ethan pulled his bow from his saddle and dismounted followed by his brothers. The men crept slowly through the tall grass easing up on the herd. One young buck stood up and raised his head and sniffed the air while the others continued to lay about in the shade chewing their cud.

The male walked to the edge of the shade and looked over the grass and once again smelled the air. His sensitive nose had alerted him that something was not quite right. Then, without warning and before the buck had time to move an arrow thudded into his side piercing his heart.

He fell to the ground startling the rest of the herd which thundered away from the trees and out onto the plain. The brothers approached the animal and Aaron slit its throat before proceeding to butcher it. They cut the animal up and cooked what they could eat that night before cutting the rest of the meat up and drying the strips in the sun before riding on.

Four days after killing the pronghorn the grassy plain began to give way to a much drier and hillier terrain where very little grew.

“Look at the rocks there on that hillside, they look as if they have been burned,” Ethan said.

“And look,” Andrew said. “There were trees here once but they are nothing now but charred trunks.”

“We are approaching the Forbidden Places and we must take precautions now,” Ethan said.

He reached into his saddle bag and produced a box about the size of a small shoe box with a meter built into it and placed it on his saddle in front of him. Andrew and Aaron pulled in close while Ethan adjusted a dial on top. The box began to produce some slight popping noises and the needle within the dial moved subtly.

Ethan approached one of the black rocks and placed the device close to it and the needle jumped from one side of the dial to the other and the popping noise increased.

“What does it mean,” Andrew said.

“It means we are at the edge of one of the Forbidden Places and we have to be careful now as the danger of the unseen fire will increase as we go forward. We‘ll ride around the worst parts and stay on the edges until we‘re out of danger.” Ethan said urging his horse forward.

As the day wore on the landscape became increasingly desolate and lifeless and the sky took on a strange yellowish tint which in turn colored everything around them an unearthly hue.

Static electricity crisscrossed through the atmosphere above them causing their hair to stand on end. They soon came upon a strange mist which was contained in one area as if it were a cloud sitting on the ground. It swirled and spun and changed colors as the trio rode around the outer edge of the boiling fog. A putrid smell emanated from it, an odor of rotten eggs and ozone and brilliant flashes of light could be seen within.

Ethan fired up the Geiger counter. The needle rose only slightly. He pushed it into the cloud and the indicator pegged and the machine began to click wildly.

“Look, there, up ahead.” Aaron said excitedly.

Ethan pulled a scope from his pack and held it to his eye and scanned the horizon.

”Well what is it?” Aaron said impatiently.

“I’m not sure,” Ethan said handing the scope to Aaron.

“Let me see,” Andrew said. “It looks like mountains of some sort; I don’t know.

They rode slowly until the Geiger counter indicated increasing levels of radiation and then stopped.

“I believe it’s the Forbidden Place,” Ethan said.

“Look over there, it looks like a road of some sort,” Andrew said.

They rode into the middle of what was once an interstate. It was now cracked and the pavement heaved up in some places and it was littered with derelict vehicles.

“I know what we were looking at earlier through the scope,” Ethan said. “The Forbidden Place is a city, one which was destroyed by the fires.”

“How do you know that Ethan, how can you be sure.” Aaron said.

“Down there,” Ethan said pointing to a faded green sign lying along the roadway.

Aaron dismounted and brushed away the dirt from the sign. “Dallas fifteen,” he said.

    They rode as close as they could before the counter turned them away. Through the scope they could see the charred and melted remains of what was once a city with a human population of almost two million before it was destroyed by the dual disasters.

The vehicles strewn along the highway contained the remains of some of those who had attempted to flee from the calamity but had failed. The skeletons of families reposed in SUV’s along with the family dog or cat or that of an emaciated goldfish. The remains of the old and the young piled together in their four wheeled sarcophagi in what became the graveyard on I-45.

The brothers rode in a northwesterly direction to a point several miles away from the city and made camp. The stars shone bright in the heavens that night. The sky was deep black and the stars seemed as diamonds tossed upon a black velvet backdrop. They shimmered and twinkled and it seemed as if one could reach out and pluck one out of the heaven and hold it in their hand.

They lay in the dark on their backs watching as the Earth spun around. They had not lit a fire as it could be easily spotted from miles away and Ethan did not want to attract any unwanted attention.

Suddenly from out of the darkness a low growling sound echoed over the low hills. The men jumped up just as another louder one rolled over through the air. These were followed by several more but much louder; then silence.

“What the hell was that?” Aaron said with an unfamiliar shakiness in his voice.

“I don’t know,” Ethan said. “But I didn’t like the sound of it. I think it was the same one that we heard back in the forest.”