Tandem of Terror (11 page)

As the question crossed her mind something
caught the corner of her eye. One, or was it two, of the jars
moved. On closer inspection, she saw that each of the jars and
vases had a lid, tightly fixed into each, sealed with wax. Someone
was determined to keep them sealed.

Again there was movement. The jars shook and
quivered, some right in front of her, others at the far end of the
table.

The noises from earlier. This is what drew
me here.

Skye was puzzled. Intermittently the jars
quivered as if alive. She tried to wrap her mind around what she
was seeing but could not. It didn't make sense. They couldn't be
moving, they just couldn't. It was some trick of the light, and the
lateness of the hour. If that was so, then what explained the sound
they made as they moved? Tricking her eyes was one thing-- tricking
her ears was quite another. The one directly in front her shimmied
almost uncontrollably and it sent a shiver up and down her spine
until Skye grabbed hold of it. She wanted it to stop, it was making
her nervous and that hadn't happened in quite some time.

As she pulled the vase from the table, she
brushed the jar next to it and it tumbled to the floor.

Skye watched it fall as if time had stopped.
It fell to the ground in utter silence, flipping and spinning. She
felt the sweat dripping off her arms and down the back her neck.
Her stomach churned. Her breathing stopped. In her hands the other
jar trembled violently as she struggled to hold onto it.

Finally the silence shattered as the wayward
vase struck the wood floor hard and shattered. Pieces of it
scattered to all points of the room like rats afraid of an
impending storm. It was something far worse than a storm that now
filled the room.

A whirlwind raged out of nowhere. It knocked
Skye off her feet forcing her to watch as something more took
shape.

Sand clouded the air, writhing in the raging
wind. It stirred and billowed into a mass, a form with depth and
dimension as a baleful moan filled the air.

Skye could feel the fury that emanated from
the sand storm hovering above her, a jagged mouth spread across the
front of it. Two points of light glowed down at her...she knew they
were eyes. Another moan escaped the sand...escalating into a screech
filled with the sound of gravel against glass, hateful, scornful,
free at last.

A wave of dust and sand rushed across the
room, spattering Skye across the face and blinding her temporarily.
She crawled towards the trapdoor or at least where she thought it
was, trying to wipe the dust from her eyes. The cries of the thing
hurt her ears now and the horses below wailed with terror.

A sick feeling filled Skye. What had she
done? She never meant for this to---

She stopped and looked up, the entity spread
to fill the top of the room, at times appearing as a funnel, at
times appearing as a huge mass of living sand which tore the roof
off the stables with one gust.

The roof shattered in pieces as a howl
escaped into the night air. Skye heard the stable doors below
explode next and the horses race out in full gallop, disappearing
into the distance.

Skye screamed, reached for the trapdoor and
watched as it flung open. Ms. Perez appeared through the door,
climbing into the room with desperation, horror on her face.
"Skye!" she called. "No! What have you done?" Her words called
above the howling wind. "My Lord Skye! You set one of them free!
Help me Skye...help me or we are all dead!"

The two women raced down the ladder and out
into the yard. Hurricane force winds lashed at them as they fought
to reach the house. The sand storm hovered over the roof of the
house and within seconds ripped it into pieces that sailed through
the air.

"
My God!" Skye screamed.
"What is it?"

"
Dust Devil...they're all Dust
Devils. If it gets to town or frees the others they'll be no one
left alive.... Not in the entire state. We must stop it!"

"
Stop it?" Skye tried
yelling above the roaring of the winds, and the screeching of the
creature but it was useless. Ms. Perez could no longer hear her and
was running ahead any way.

Skye froze as she saw the wind yank Lila into
the air, her screams drowned out by the wind and chaos. Sheer
terror gripped Skye as Lila's limbs were torn from her body. Red
lit up the massive sand storm as it morphed from a funnel into a
mass that devoured the rest of Lila's body. A shower of red rain
soaked them as the storm began to expand.

The rest of the house shook and rumbled,
Sarah threw herself from her window and rolled across the ground.
Skye ran to her aid, dragging her away from the enraged dust devil
and the house that looked as if it would launch into the air at any
moment.

What have I done?
Skye could not
believe her eyes. All of her senses betrayed her. This couldn't be
real. It was something out of a nightmare but more real then she
could have ever imagined. Lila did not deserve that fate. She had
never seen someone die before. True she was no angel and took
advantage of many people but she was no killer. Her petty crimes
had never caused someone to die until now.

She didn't know how to process this, what to
do with the guilt and horror that now gnawed at her insides. How
could she ever atone? How could she ever live with herself? Lila
was gone. She was to blame.

Dumbstruck she watched Ms. Perez go into
action, the old woman took hold of the crucifix around her neck and
it glowed bright white. She raced over to the Dust Devil and
confronted it head on. With the crucifix in her left hand and her
right hand aloft, she attacked the beast.

Ms. Perez's right hand glowed white as she
waved it at the living storm. "Back! Back!" Skye heard her call as
the storm wailed and raged. Her voice carried over the beast's
protests as if it seemed to fear her. It blew away from the house
and into the barren yard, wagons soaring through the air, corral
gates, sacks of feed, stable debris flying with them.

The devil lashed back, whipping sand across
the air like tendrils. They caught Ms. Perez across the face,
taking her off her feet.

Skye gasped, her eyes wide with horror that
turned to amazement as Ms. Perez jumped up and attacked again.

A horrendous battle played out across the
dessert, Skye finally managing to get to her feet. The devil sent
Ms. Perez flying a dozen times but the old woman always managed to
get back up...until the last time.

A deafening roar escaped the Dust Devil and
with all its might it assaulted Ms. Perez with a battering of sand,
wind and hate. Skye heard bones pop and Ms. Perez scream before she
hit the desert ground hard. A bellowing laughter escaped the devil
as it hovered in the air.

Skye rushed to Ms. Perez, blood seeping from
the old woman's nose and her flesh ravaged with scratches. "No!"
Skye called.

"
I am too old and weak," Ms.
Perez said. "I can no longer fight them. You must put it right
Skye. Before the evil escapes. You are the protector now...I pass it
on to you. You are ready. You will know what to do. Take it inside
Skye, but don't hold it in for too long. You'll know what to do."
In her last gesture, Ms. Perez placed the crucifix around Skye's
neck and smiled.

Skye held her hand as she died. "Ms. Perez
no..." Tears soaked Skye's cheeks. "I'm not ready." There was a sigh
and she was gone.
Not you too
, Skye thought. The crucifix
glowed around her neck. She felt a tingling inside her, an
awakening. Her body surged with a new purpose, a new power.

The Dust Devil roared and laughed behind her
mockingly.

Skye turned, her eyes fixed on it, hatred in
her heart for it. She clutched the crucifix in her hand and
launched herself towards it.

"
Back! " Skye screamed. The
beast wailed with disbelief. Skye could feel its fear. "You can
feel me can't you?" She cried. "I am much stronger than the last.
You will obey!"

It flailed and cursed, lashing at her with
tendrils of sand and dirt, with desert heat and blistering winds.
But Skye felt nothing. Instead she pushed on, advancing on the
beast. "Now!" she called, lifting her right hand, it now glowing
bright white and in a flash the Dust Devil vanished.

Silence swallowed the desert. Skye fell to
her knees. An awful pain swelled in her stomach, pain worse than
any she had felt in her life.

Picking herself up, she stumbled into the
house, its roof gone but the rest of it still safe. She nearly fell
as she made her way into Ms. Perez's bedroom, bracing herself along
the walls. There she spotted the empty jars and pottery on a
dresser. She grabbed one, opened her mouth and vomited sand into
it, filling it to the brim. She immediately covered it with a lid,
the jar trembling violently in her hands until she could find some
wax. Yes she knew what to do.

One year later.

Skye stood on the porch, admiring the new
roof the contractors had put on. It was a fine roof, sturdy enough
to withstand some strong storms. She heard the car pull into the
driveway and turned to meet it. Her new boarders had arrived.
Young, troubled women in need of a new life much like the one she
now had. It was time to make amends, to atone. For Lila. For Ms.
Perez.

"
Hello, welcome to your new
home," Skye called, catching sight of herself reflecting in the car
window and noticing the bit of gray strands that began settling in
her hair. She smiled as two women got out of the car. One noticed
Skye playing with the crucifix around her neck.

"
A gift," Skye said. "From
an older woman, she was like a mentor to me. She gave me a new
life. Much like the one you're beginning. You don't understand that
now. But you will. Someday."

Yes she knew what to do. And understood. For
her, that someday was today.

Storms

Eric S. Brown

The energy storm was moving fast and there
was no way to tell how bad it was going to be when it hit. Danny
could see the lightening rippling and dancing through the clouds.
The horizon behind him was a mass of scorched earth as the bolts
rained down upon it. Yet, he knew the storm could lose its
intensity before it reached them. Sometimes storms like this lasted
only seconds and other times they could rage for hours based on the
limited data he had read about Chimera. He heaved the weight of
Glenda's unconscious and wounded body on his shoulders into a
better resting place and picked up his pace. If he didn't make it
to the caves up ahead of him in time, they'd both be fried when the
storm came.

Danny ran to the closest cave, opening into
the mountain, and hurled Glenda deep inside just as the first close
coming bolt blew apart the ground behind him, spraying him with
dirt and rock. He cursed tearing off the shirt of his uniform, as
he screamed in pain from where tiny flakes of shrapnel had gotten
inside to touch his skin. The burns hurt as he ducked further into
the cave himself. Glenda's body lay a few feet away from him. As
the sky flashed like a strobe light, he could see the blood seeping
through the bandages around her waist. The Chimerian had gutted her
pretty badly. He doubted she would make it through the night.

He slumped down against the rock wall and
began to rummage through what was left of his gear. He'd had to
leave most of it behind in order to carry Glenda away from the
battle and in the chaos, he'd lost his helmet and hers leaving them
without anyway to communicate with the other survivors of the unit.
"If there are any," he muttered to himself.

When the Terran Space Administration had
chosen to explore the planet Chimera, despite its hellish weather
and inhospitable climate, in hopes of terra-forming it, no one had
guessed that the planet would be inhabited. The planet's own
environment limited even the best communications gear so the
science crew sent to survey the world had been accompanied by his
unit, twelve of the best T.S.A. marines in the service, as a
precautionary measure. The Chimerian ambush was a complete surprise
to everyone and took even his elite unit off guard. The battle had
been lost almost as soon as it started. Despite the Chimerians'
medieval level of technology, the aliens themselves were formidable
foes. They were not carbon based life forms. It was as if he'd been
shooting at solid rock as he'd tried to help his unit hold them off
from the team's encampment. The battle had been more like a
massacre than a true conflict.

Danny finished fishing through his gear. He
had a few rations, one more shot of pain killer for Glenda and an
extra energy cell for the handgun he still carried and that was it.
There was nothing that would help them to get out of here alive. He
slammed his fist in frustration against the cave wall. It came away
smeared with blood from the impact on the jagged rocks. He thanked
God that at least the Chimerians had been forced to take cover from
the storm too or they'd be at the cave's mouth already showing
their diamond teeth in expressions of bestial rage at the intruders
who came to their world.

Danny dismissed the idea of trying to reach
the drop shuttle. Even leaving Glenda behind, he'd never make it
even if the storm cleared and he was somehow able to avoid the
Chimerians. It was too far and the planet's days were too hot. He
didn't have enough water.

Glenda moaned and stirred a bit where she
lay. Danny moved to her side and shot her up with the last of the
pain meds. It was the best he could do for her. Then he turned his
attention back to the storm outside and watched the earth blaze as
the bolts crackled and spent their energy upon the soil. Sweat
rolled down his naked chest and he felt as if he were being cooked
alive. He fought to stay awake and alert but blackness over took
him.