Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (61 page)

Mara moaned. Samuel looked at her and
then back to Major.

Major sighed and walked to an outcrop of
rock. He sat on it and put his head in his hands. The old man looked out of the
cave and back at Samuel, shaking his head.

“I guess we ain’t getting where I thought
we would.

“No,” Samuel said, as he stared at
Major, his eyes as solid as the walls of the cavern. “We’re not. I’ve got
another plan. I spoke with Deva.”

Major laughed, slapping his knee with one
hand. “Deva? What the fuck is that? You talking to Aretha or Mariah out here?”

Samuel waited for Major’s snickers to die
off before continuing. “I think he might control the horde.”

“Nobody controls the horde, son. Just
because the storm is coming doesn’t mean I can claim I sent it.” Major stood
and brushed the front of his overcoat. “I’d love to continue your education,
but I seriously don’t give a rat’s ass about it. We need to slip from this
place before it’s too late. If you can’t do that with me, I’m just as happy to
go it alone.”

Major pulled a dagger from underneath his
coat. In the other hand he held a tire iron. “They’re not
Lord of the Rings
–caliber
weapons, but they’ll be enough to get the talisman from your dead body.”

“What if we try slipping three?” Samuel
asked. He had to resolve the action he was about to take by exhausting all
possibilities first.

“Cloud ain’t gonna wait for us to talk
through this like a couple of grade-school girlies. Give me the talisman.”

Samuel looked down at the knife in his
palm. He felt the familiar texture of the handle and the weight of it. He knew
the blade was no match for the dagger in Major’s hand, but he had youth and
fitness on his side.

“That’s not going to happen so I guess
there isn’t much left to say,” Samuel said.

Major nodded and spread his feet
shoulder-width apart. He crouched low, his beady eyes peering from beneath the
edge of his headband. Major held the dagger in front of his face while the tire
iron dangled from his other hand.

Samuel gripped Scout in his hand and took
a step toward Major. He looked at the old man’s face and waited, giving one
last pause. Samuel had not been in many fistfights as a kid, but he could never
forget the concoction of fear, anxiety and adrenaline that surged through his
veins before one started. He felt his tongue stiffen in a dry mouth, and
the muscles in both his arms twitched. When Major shook his head, Samuel knew
the time for negotiations had ended.

Major swung the dagger in a lazy arc,
cutting the air with the sharpened blade. He brought it back and forth, carving
a safe space between him and Samuel. The tire iron waited, the cold metal
knowing the time for bashing would come soon enough. Samuel stepped closer,
keeping his blade upright in a defensive block, although he thought one full
swing from Major’s dagger would break his own blade. He bent down to pick up a
rock in his left hand.

“You’re desperate, boy. Last chance.”

Samuel ignored Major’s words and swung
hard with his fist closed around the knife. Major stepped back to dodge it and
came around with a kick to Samuel’s knee. The blow from his boot made him
wince. Major watched as he dropped the rock to grab the damaged ligaments. When
Samuel squatted, Major came across his shoulder with the tire iron. Samuel fell
sideways, and his head crashed into the powdery dirt of the cavern floor. The
tire iron felt like it had cut a burning hole in his shoulder, which helped to
distract him from the pain in his leg.

Major stepped back and waited. Samuel
writhed on the ground as Major waited for him to stand. When he did, Major
brought the tire iron into Samuel’s midsection, where it struck his ribs. They
both heard the bones crack before Samuel felt the searing pain. Samuel
doubled over and dropped Scout on the ground.

Major stood and straightened his back. He
glanced at the entrance to the cave, looked at Mara’s still body, and then at
the back of Samuel’s head, now curling in toward his knees as he lay in a fetal
position on the ground.

“There ain’t much time left. If you don’t
slip us now, I’m going to kill you and take my chances flying solo.”

Samuel lifted his head. He looked at
Major’s eyes through a wall of silent tears but did not respond.

“So be it,” Major said.

He brought the tire iron up above his
head, lining up the back of Samuel’s skull. As he held it aloft, Samuel flipped
over and threw the rock into Major’s groin. The old man let out a muffled cry
as the chunk of limestone collided with his most sensitive area, causing him to
drop his arm but not the tire iron. Major staggered backward as the blow stole
all of the breath from his lungs. He turned sideways to spew what little
remained inside his stomach.

Samuel recognized the lull as his last
opportunity to survive the fight. He pushed himself up into a hunched position,
willing his injured leg to withstand the weight of his body. He drew his good
knee back and drove it upward into Major’s abdomen. The old man didn’t see it
coming because he was puking. Major fell backward into the dirt, as did
Samuel when his leg gave out under the strain. Samuel crawled closer and
spotted Scout in the dirt. His fingers clenched the handle of the blade. Samuel
aimed the point at the back of Major’s right leg. He reached forward and sliced
across the back of Major’s boot, just above his heel, severing the Achilles
tendon. Major screamed and dropped his weapons as his hands went toward the
wound.

Feeling on somewhat more equal footing,
Samuel rolled backward to avoid Major’s random flailing weapons. He
pulled himself into a sitting position and tried to breathe through the
fissures in his ribs. He thought about the countless stories he heard about
hand-to-hand combat where a broken rib punctured a lung and the combatant
drowned in his own blood. Samuel rubbed his hand along his side, hoping the
pointy bones were not poised to do the same to him.

Major could not hold back his cries. He
blinked, determined not to let the pain overtake him and force unconsciousness.
The thudding force in his abdomen caused several more dry heaves, while the
burning pain above his heel made it difficult to even roll over. Major reached
for his dagger and brought it to his chest while forcing himself over onto his
back. He used his palms to push up into a sitting position, with the cave wall
supporting his back.

Samuel rose to his knees and then to his
feet as his injured leg threatened to send him crashing into the floor. He held
Scout in his hand and locked eyes with Major.

“I guess this is how it’s going to end
for you,” he said to the old man.

Major shook his head. “The girl. I think
she may have stopped breathing.”

Samuel looked over his shoulder at Mara.
He had a hard time making out her form as the cloud descended even farther, the
blackness spilling inside the cave like slow-moving, black ooze.

“Look. Her chest isn’t moving.”

Samuel shook his head and screamed. The
cry of frustration filled the cavern and reverberated throughout the passages.
He looked at Major and then turned to check on Mara.

The sudden jolt of pain delivered to the
back of Samuel’s head knocked him to the ground. Before his body crashed into
the stone, he regretted turning his back on a wounded animal.

Major crawled toward him after placing a
lucky throw at the base of Samuel’s neck. Samuel saw dashing lights sparkling
in his vision, while his stomach prepared an ejection that would be arriving
soon. He tasted the bitter limestone in his throat and blinked it from his
eyes. He could see Mara’s feet and he giggled, thinking of the witch’s feet
extending from underneath the house in
The Wizard of Oz
. The movie scene
overlaid his perception in the cave as the rock to the back of his head
scrambled reality. He dug his nails into the dirt and pulled his body toward
Mara. Sounds swirled in his head as he thought he heard music coming from the
reversion outside. Guitar riffs traveled on the floaters in his vision as his
senses, which had been dulled for so long inside this locality, came alive. He
shook his head and spat a glob of saliva into the dirt, where it sat before
being absorbed by the dryness of the powder.

Get up, Samuel. Get up now, or Major
is going to finish you off and leave this locality over two dead bodies. Get
up.

He heard the voice in his head as loud as
if it were being yelled into his ears. It sounded like everyone and no one at
the same time. The voice felt familiar but other-worldly. He managed to turn
his body over and blink as his double vision registered two men crawling toward
him on their knees, each holding a dagger in his right hand.

Major staggered and stood, using the tire
iron as a makeshift crutch. He slumped to one side like a shanty amidst urban
decay. He raised the dagger, deciding to use the force of gravity to drive it
through Samuel’s chest.

“We are running out of time, my boy. And
I don’t think I’ve got another lucky throw in this tired arm.”

Samuel blinked as the blow to his head
turned from disorienting to painful. He tasted more dirt in his mouth and hoped
to spare a few more seconds until the ringing in his ears subsided enough for
him to think.

“You got a hell of an arm,” Samuel said,
his words slurred.

Major winced and recalibrated his stand.
The tire iron was not long enough to provide the support he needed for his
severed tendon. Samuel watched the man’s eyes and knew the pain was dulling his
appetite for conversation.

“It’s too bad you weren’t interested in
having me as a travel partner. Think we coulda had some times,” Major said.

Samuel watched as the dagger came up higher.
Major bent his knees like a swimmer on the block, waiting for the sound of the
starter pistol. Samuel gripped Scout in his right hand, where cold sweat
gathered along with the adrenaline.

Major leapt forward and brought the
dagger down. He landed on top of Samuel, their eyes meeting. Their bodies
remained motionless like lovers in an embrace. Neither spoke. Major’s mouth
opened, but blood flowed from it instead of words. Samuel looked to his right
where Major’s dagger stuck in the hard ground of the cave. He felt the warm
trickle surrounding the hand that held Scout firmly lodged in Major’s chest.
Samuel shifted his weight to the left and rolled, pushing Major’s body off his
own. He left Scout inside Major, no longer feeling it served any purpose for him.
The old man blinked, his hand resting on the hilt of the knife.

“I tried. I really tried. If you had just
stayed there.”

Major coughed, spurting blood over his
lips and down his chin. He let out a low cackle and shook his head back and
forth. “Let yer conscience go, son. This is how I was going out, not banished
to another locality like some surly teenager sent to his room.” Another
wracking cough made Major stop. His ragged breathing reduced his speech to mere
whispers.

“I’ve gotta check on Mara,” Samuel said,
running a hand through his hair. When he looked back at Major, the man’s eyes
remained open in the long, glassy stare of the dead.

Samuel pushed away. His injured leg felt
like a thousand pounds, and he continued to fight through double vision. Major’s
words echoed in his head, forcing Samuel to think of his own childhood and all
of the expectations he could never fulfill. He began to cry, a few tears at
first, until he sobbed. The reversion continued to creep into the cave, unaware
of his tender, emotional state.

“Goddammit,” he said to nobody in
particular.

Samuel knelt and looked back at Major.
The man’s corpse remained unchanged, his right hand wrapped around the handle
of the blade that had stolen his life essence. Samuel looked over to Mara and
couldn’t tell if her chest was moving.

He felt the air pressure inside the cave
change. The billowing cloud that had roiled overhead when he first arrived in
the cursed forest had descended to nibble on the tips of the trees. He
remembered it eating the light from the sky as it moved west to east. Samuel
tried to calculate the number of days he spent in this locality, but he came up
with nothing but a head-shaking guess, as if he were cataloging the events of a
distant dream. Now, the cloud blotted out the entrance to the cave in a
swirling mass of dark matter. It looked like a heavy, black velour curtain hung
behind the walls, sealing the intestines of the mountain off from the carnage
brought by the reversion.

A constant humming came through the
stone. It drew an energy through Samuel that reverberated in his ears. It felt
almost electrical, as if a microphone started to feedback through a mismanaged
speaker system. His other senses began to awaken as well. Samuel could smell
the dank limestone mixed with the scent of human blood. He felt the sticky
dampness on the back of his head, and licked the coppery blood from a gash on
his hand. His injuries came alive, each demanding attention from his brain,
which continued to function through the head trauma. He was not sure why the
reversion would provide a final burst of brain activity as it extinguished what
remained. Samuel pictured a video from a science class in middle school. He
could see the crude animation representing a supernova. The star swelled, and the
intensity of its glare brightened beyond its capacity to sustain the millions
of molecular activities taking place in its core. Samuel remembered how the
dying star bathed the surrounding void of space with brilliant light before it
contracted upon itself. He shuddered at the thought of the implosion that would
eventually create a black hole, a negative energy so strong that not even light
would escape its grasp. Whether or not he believed he could escape, Samuel
chuckled at the thought of the reversion sweeping through this world, turning
it into a real black hole.