The Man From Taured (28 page)

Kolthrax ran forward and knocked his brother and father aside (later when Kolthrax saw the coat he had been wearing he saw burn marks where he had touched them). He heard them hurl curses at him inside his mind. Kolthrax pushed forward, extending his arms. The air behind his brother and father was alive, and he pushed through that too, like pushing through a membrane into the real world. Now he could see the end of the tunnel up ahead. His other brothers were there, looking into the tunnel curiously.

"Help me!" Kolthrax called.

His brother stood there, obviously confused, unable to move.

Kolthrax forced his legs to move faster. Things were moving all around him. Something wet and heavy grabbed his arm and he looked down to see a tentacle of what appeared to be pure darkness had looped its way around his arm. He let loose a cry of disgust and yanked his arm away.

Finally, his brothers at the mouth of the tunnel were moving. They ran toward him and there were hands from people that he knew, that he loved, grabbing him. This was followed by screams and the sound of flesh rending and tearing.

Kolthrax was yanked away and the walls of the tunnel rushed past him. He regained his footing and now he was running. All around him his brothers, however, were vanishing, disappearing into the darkness. This was followed by more screaming, the sounds of bones breaking, liquid sounds that must have been blood.

He reached the mouth of the tunnel and he was in the light. Behind him three more of his brothers also stumbled forward. They paused, looked at one another, and then back into the darkness of the tunnel.

Something inside the tunnel screamed and that scream rose in pitch and volume until it was a roar.

Kolthrax and his brothers ran.

They never saw their father or those brothers they had left behind again. Kolthrax himself never set foot in the mine again and, a few weeks later, left his home to try and find a purpose for himself and for his life. Two days after he set out, a man in a long coat and wide-brimmed hat appeared from the shadows behind a tree. He had a strange, pale, face and was much shorter than Kolthrax, but the man had an interesting story to tell.

Kolthrax listened.

Then he joined the fight.

Not long after that, the darkness had come for Kolthrax’s world.

***

Noble sat in stunned silence. He didn’t want to know any more. The others in the group probably all had stories just like it. V
ariations on a theme where the darkness came alive with malevolent intent. Noble felt child-zombie fingers running up and down his spine and his shivered.

He faced out the window and watched the scenery go by.

***

They piled out of the van and brought the equipment into the warehouse. The entire area looked abandoned, but Noble recognized that this property and all of the surrounding property was owned and operated by Homeland. The outside of the warehouse looked like it was run down and falling apart. Inside it was loaded with banks of computers and monitors and weapons of all kinds. There were vehicles and, in the back, cages and cells for people that were arrested. It was all part of the emergency system that had been secretly put into place after the attacks on 2001. If there was ever a real assault on the United States, this was one of the places the secret military could get their weapons, get their orders, and store prisoners to pump them for information.

There were almost thirty beings there now, setting up their own equipment, laying out weapons on the tables. Noble studied some of the weapons and shook his head. Some of them looked like toys out of a Steampunk catalog. They resembled 1950s toy rayguns and some of them looked as if they were put together from aluminum or flimsy metal. All of them, he had been told, were powerful weapons that would be capable of neutralizing, vaporizing or blowing apart the black-eyed children. He had also been reassured that they could take down Whitten if need be, although Noble had his doubts. None of these guys had seen Whitten when his eyes turned black and lifted Noble in the air.

"Let's gather 'round," Dash said.

They all gathered around what looked like a huge black glass table. It was like a giant touchscreen tablet. In fact, it really was, but with a holographic projector. Noble had seen these prototypes, but had no idea that something was in use in the field. Dash touched the screen and the images began floating in the air over the table.

"This is the Gemini campus," Dash said.

It was a blueprint translated into a three-dimensional hologram. The territory and property that Gemini owned was much bigger than Noble thought. Much of it was trees and woods, filled with animals like deer and coyote. There were smaller buildings dotting the land, amid the trees, but most of the activity was confined to the building at the center of it all - Gemini Tower.

The tower sort of resembled a large letter "A." The building sloped to a flattened point. The interior was entirely. The offices and labs inside there were where some of the most secret stuff was now housed. The offices had been moved to a smaller building on the edge of the campus. Just off center of the entire campus was the circle that still housed the equipment for the super-collider. It was no longer in use, or so the official story went, but there were some who believed that was where the dimensional experiments were now being conducted, or had been conducted. Perhaps smashing together all of those atoms had punched a hole in things.

"We are going to have to try and get in via one of the older entrances. There's one on the far south side here. It was an active entrance and exit when the collider was in use, but it has been closed off and is now overgrown with vegetation," Dash explained. "It looks abandoned, but given the experiments that have been going on there, we have no idea what kind of security is installed. There could be portals and other things there that we could all fall into. Or creatures and booby traps that have been pulled into this dimension. We'll then have to take abandoned roads and perhaps run right up to the tower. Again, the tower itself could be surrounded by Void avatars. The entire working population of the Gemini building might be possessed. We just have no idea. The entire place has been on a kind of information lockdown for some time now."

The holograms spun and twisted. It showed the side entrances, the woods and the grounds around the Gemini tower. Noble took notes, mentally, and in a small notebook. They spent hours, studying every aspect via the holograms and the blueprints that Dash had on paper. They also studied photos of the exterior and the interior of the building. It was a lot to absorb and Noble felt his head was getting heavier with each additional nugget of data.

"That's it," Dash said, at last. "That's everything I have."

Dash studied his watch for a moment.

"It's late," Dash said. "Near the back of the warehouse there's a series of beds set up. I suggest we all get some sleep. We need to get an early start tomorrow. We have a long way to go and we need to get to Gemini Tower by the time the sun is going down."

The rest of them muttered and broke off toward the beds. Orval, Shaw and Noble ended up in a kitchen area rooting around for food. After several minutes of assembling the parts for sandwiches, Orval agreed to make them.#

"Wait until you see my sandwich-making skills," Orval said. "You will be delighted."

Noble smiled. There was no denying the fact that there was just something likable about Orval.

"What do you think?" Shaw asked Noble after they found seats around the kitchen table.

"About what?" Noble replied.

"All of this."

"I’m a little overwhelmed. Just a few days ago I was a guy who thought he knew the world and what was in it. Now I find out there are more worlds and that I am somehow key to saving them all. How would you feel?"

Orval put plates down in front of them. The sandwiches were piled high with lettuce, tomatoes, meat and more. Noble's stomach growled so loudly that he blushed. He grabbed the sandwich and bit.

"It's delicious," Noble said around a mouthful.

"Thank you," Orval replied, sitting down and taking his own bite. "I've been fighting this battle for so long that it is old hand to me, Noble. I can only just barely remember when I first got drafted into this war. I was just doing my work as a cop. Yes, I am a cop in my own dimension. We were investigating a series of disappearances, mostly of teenagers. Before long I was dealing with sightings of black-eyed children and shadow men. It was Dr. Shaw here who introduced himself to me."

"Yep," Shaw agreed. "I broke some rules to do that, too. But I knew that Orval would be an asset to our organization."

Noble thought that had he not been exhausted, this would have been a fascinating conversation. As it was, he was having trouble focusing. His head was swimming with blueprints and other facts and he was also enjoying his sandwich. It was several moments before Noble realized that his phone was vibrating.

"Hello?"

There was noise on the other end. The sound of voices yelling at each other. The sound of someone running, as if the phone was rubbing against something. Noble could hear someone crying in terror and fear.

"Noble?"

"Eveline?"

"Yes!"

"What's happening?"

"I went to my sister's place," Eveline replied, her voice filled with the most bone-chilling terror that Noble had ever heard. "I went there, like you said, but they came. They came!"

"Who came?" Noble asked, knowing full well who it was that had shown up.

"The children!" Eveline cried. "They came and my sister let them in! Jesus, Noble, she's gone!"

Noble got up and paced around the kitchen. He could hear a voice in the background, but he could not understand what it was saying. Eveline was hyperventilating and crying. There were other voices, too. The voices were panicking, screaming, yelling.

"They got inside!" Eveline said. "They touched her and she's gone and now they're going after my niece and nephew!"

"Get out of the house, Eveline!" Noble screamed. "You have to get out of the house!"

"There are dozens of them! They're all over the place. I can't get out!"

There was more running and screaming. The sound of a door slamming and Eveline breathed heavily into the phone, crying, whimpering.

"I'm in a closet," Eveline whispered. "Oh God, Noble, what am I going to do?"

"Just stay quiet," Noble realized he was whispering, as if speaking loudly would draw them to where he was.

Noble put his hand over the microphone and turned toward Orval and Shaw, both of whom were now standing beside the kitchen counter watching him.

"It's Eveline Paulson," Noble said. "Her sister let the black-eyed children in. She's hiding. Her sister's already gone. What can we do?"

Shaw shrugged. "Noble, there's not much we can do. We don't even know where she is!"

Noble wanted to say something more, but Shaw was right. How the hell could they get there? What would they do?

"Eveline, you have to get out of the house," Noble said back into the phone, once again whispering. "You have to get out."

"I can't!" Eveline replied. "Oh God, I hear them coming!"

Eveline must have put the phone down and everything became muffled. More crying and whimpering. In the background there was the sound of footsteps. The breathing got softer, but it still seemed so loud to Noble. There was a loud creaking. Eveline screamed. The scream went on and on and on and it pierced Noble's heart and soul.

The scream cut off.

There was a thudding sound that must have been the phone falling to the floor.

For a moment there as nothing and then the sound of feet shuffling across the carpet. More jostling of the phone followed as if the phone were being picked up. There was a hideous sound and then the phone went dead.

Noble stood there for a moment, his entire body frozen. He felt as if his blood had turned to ice. The sound he heard before the phone went dead echoed again and again inside his brain, inside his heart.

It was the sound of a child giggling.

It was going to be a long night, and Shaw, Orval and Noble found a spot at an empty table to talk. As the night wore on they shared their stories. Noble already knew Shaw’s, but he was curious about Orval.

“How did you end up with this motley crew?” Noble asked.

“Oh, it’s a tale of sadness and tragedy,” Orval said, his face suddenly somber and his eyes distant and haunted.

“What happened?” Noble prodded.

***

I was just a child when I first discovered the darkness. My family was a farming family. My world is so much larger than your Earth, Noble. We lived out in the country, far, far from anyone and everyone. I had a large family. Mom and dad, three sisters behind me and three brothers in front of me and me right in the middle. We work
ed hard and we kids were recruited into the farming efforts at a young age. If you could walk, then you could help carry chicken feed and cow feed. Our farms and animals looked much the same as yours, by the way.

I was about ten years old when the darkness came. Our well had run dry and my father began drilling a new well. The water tasted so fresh and cold, Noble, it was amazing. What we didn't know, however, was that the drilling had punched a hole right into another world. It took time for the Void to figure it out, I guess, but things began to change.

The crops all died. That was the first thing. We were growing corn and wheat and first a strange withering disease hit the corn and the ears withered and fell and turned to dust. Then the wheat started to crumble. Just after that something infected the pigs. I remember looking into the pen and the pig's eyes had turned black and they ran around and around the pen, not eating or sleeping or fucking or anything. They ran until they collapsed and then turned into black goo.

My father was a wreck. He began staying in his room. My mother tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, but we could hear the cows and horses braying in agony and madness.

I was pretty oblivious. Perhaps I was just at the age when it was still possible to get lost in playing and running around like an idiot and push the bad things out of my mind.

That all changed one day in the middle of the summer when I found my oldest brother, Heath, standing at the new well. It was warm and the sun was shining. I had been away from the home all day. When I woke up that morning there was a wailing sound from my parent's room and it scared me. When I think about it, I realize it was probably my father weeping and wailing, but I just ran. I ran far away. I had no idea what was going on, but the sound was so terrifying to me that only running made sense. The chickens were dead and the crops had turned to dust and there were no chores, so I ran into the woods and climbed trees and played army and other things that kids can do on their own just as well as with other kids.

Around lunch time I was hungry and went back to the house. There was silence save for the buzzing of insects in the air. I entered the back door of our home and there was nothing. The remaining animals were quiet. The kitchen was empty. The other rooms, as I went through, were also empty. Then, in my parent's bedroom I saw blood on the floor, but the room was abandoned. The bedclothes had not been made, which was odd.

Had they all gone somewhere without me? It wasn't as if I had a pager or cell phone where they could call me. I had been pretty deep in the woods and oblivious to the world and if they had called me, I likely would not have heard a damn thing.

There was a bit of blood in all of my sibling's rooms, but not as much as in the room where my parents slept. I walked back into the kitchen, the shadows now appearing menacing and threatening, and the silence now like a living thing pressing down on me. Things just looked wrong, smelled wrong, and there was a strange smell in the air. I peeked out the back window, over the sink, standing on my tip toes, and I saw my brother in the distance standing at the stone wall of the well.

I smiled. I remember the smile. I thought it was good that I was not alone and I had found someone that I could talk to.

I ran out the back door and across the empty fields. Had I been paying attention I would have noticed how sad and pathetic those empty fields looked. Had I been thinking, I would have realized how all of this was wrong. Everything was wrong. How could a child be so oblivious that finding blood in the bedroom was not something that caused alarm? I don't know how that is possible, I can only tell you that it didn't disturb me.

As I got closer to my brother Heath, I saw that he had something in his arms. Something that was wriggling and kicking. I was puzzled and unable to digest what I was seeing. I stopped about ten yards or so from the well.

"Heath?" I called.

My brother turned slowly, as if there were gears inside his neck and they had rusted. That was when I saw what was in his arms. I opened my mouth to scream, but then I saw my brother Heath's eyes and everything inside me turned to ice.

His eyes were black pits. His face was gray and there was this twisted grin on his face that stretched up past his nose. Blood ran from the corners and down his chin.

In his arms was my youngest sister, Alistine. She was no more than four and she was in his arms kicking and punching at my brother Heath.

"He'p me!" She yelled.

I was ten. My brother was easily three times my size. I had no idea what was happening. I was frozen.

My brother dropped Alistine into the well. I heard her screaming all the way down. It took forever for the screaming to stop.

No splash.

Nothing.

Heath turned to me and the smile got bigger and I could hear the skin ripping as his mouth was torn apart.

"It's so dark, Orval," he said, lifting himself onto the edge of the stone wall that encircled the well. "But it's warm. So warm."

Then he dropped backwards over the edge, tumbling backward. He did not scream. There was just silence.

***

“I ran and ran and ran,” Orval said. Tears streamed down his face now. “When I got halfway across the field I ran
head first into a man wearing a long coat and a big hat and red eyes. He held me until I was calm and then I fell asleep. He must have done something to put me to sleep. When I woke up, I was with him and not long after that I met the rest of IDEA. They told me what had done that to my family and I’ve been part of this since.”

“Since the age of ten?” Noble asked. Noble wiped his own eyes and realized he was weeping.

“Yes,” Orval tried a smile and then wiped arm across his face. “But it’s been good since then. Seen so much and so much of it’s wonderful. And it encouraged me to become a policeman in my home world. To try and help people. It got me away from farming.”

They spoke some more and then Noble realized what time it was. Then he excused himself to call his wife. Suddenly more than ever he was missing her.

***

"OK, good," Noble said into his phone. "I'm glad things are OK."

"I have seen a couple of those shadow guys around, but nothing else," Olivia said. "I keep the doors locked, though, and the blinds closed. Are you going to be home soon?"

"I hope so," Noble said. "I really hope so."

"You can't tell me what's happening, can you?"

"Probably not. I'd better not. Not over the air like this."

"I love you," Olivia said. Noble could tell that there were tears ready to pour over her cheeks.

"I love you, too," Noble replied, swallowing the lump in his throat. More than anything he wished he was there with her and the dogs. He never realized how much he missed his dogs. "I'll be home soon and we can get back to our regular life."

"I don't know if that's entirely possible, but maybe we can get close," Olivia said. "Please be careful."

He hung up and put his phone in his pocket. He had moved to a quiet corner of the warehouse and he pressed his head against the wall and wept quietly. He wanted to go home. There was a strong feeling to just bolt out of the warehouse and run home. He would just keep running if he had to, maybe flag down a car. Of course, every part of him now realized that if he flagged down a car it would likely be filled with dark-eyed creatures.

Noble wiped his eyes and walked back to the kitchen. Shaw and Orval were still there, talking quietly, sitting amid the scraps of the sandwiches. When they saw him approaching they abruptly stopped their chatting and stared at him with wide eyes.

"She's fine," Noble said. "She's seen a few IDEA folks around, but none of the black-eyed people and children."

Noble sat down and put his head in his hands. He stared at the table top and felt the tears coming again.

"I don't know if I can do this," he said.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He raised his head and saw that it was Orval.

"Yes, you can," Orval said. "You have to, really, Noble. You know that, right? The life of your wife is included in this."

"Yeah, I know," Noble replied. "I get it, but suddenly having the weight of not only this world, but multiple dimensions, it's a bit much. I mean, you have basically told me that I am the key to the entire thing."

"I'm sorry, Noble," Shaw said. "I wish there was another way to do this. I wish there was someone else to take this responsibility, but given how far things have gotten, there's no one else."

"Yeah, I get it," Noble replied. "OK, look, I am going to try to go to bed and get some sleep. Let's get this done."

Shaw and Orval said more things to him that he thought were probably meant to be encouraging, but he barely noticed. He was overwhelmed and exhausted. He felt guilty about Eveline.

He collapsed into bed and was soon asleep, filled with troubled dreams about dark eyes, tunnels, creatures made of shadow.

***

They climbed into the van again the following morning. They had all eaten breakfast and everyone else was filled in on what had hap
pened with Noble the night before. Noble sat in silence and ate, focusing on the plans that Dash had given him.

Once they were in the van, the rest of them became silent. Shaw drove again. They sped off down the highway, the miles burning past them as they entered Ohio.

Nothing. There was nothing.

Until they stopped at a rest area in Ohio. It was just too much for them to make it all the way back to Chicago without stopping. Everyone was hungry and cramped and Noble had to go to the bathroom. He had always had a small bladder and it was a minor miracle that he made it as far as they did without his kidneys exploding.

Shaw did not want to stop. They had been making remarkably good time and traffic had been light. Noble also detected a nervousness in Shaw. Noble could almost read the man's thoughts now. He was worried that they were making good time because Whitten and Void were somehow making it that way. It was paranoia, of course. There was no way either of them had that kind of reality-warping ability.

Or did they?

The thought made Noble's bladder feel even worse.

One thing he had to admit, and that was that Ohio had really nice rest areas. Illinois had small rest areas with maybe a vending area and restrooms. Ohio's looked like malls. They were large and clean and had souvenir stores and a large food court, restaurants and a Starbucks. Set apart from the restrooms and food court was a gas station. There were grassy areas and a small fenced area for walking your dog.

Not bad. Noble's stomach growled when he saw the restaurants. He hadn't even realized how hungry he was until then.

They exited the van. There were about two dozen or so cars in the parking lot and Noble could see people sitting in the food court area, burgers and fries on trays and halfway to their mouths. There were kids running around in the grass, and when they got inside there was a line in front of the Starbucks. The restrooms were off to the left, set apart from the food court, just past a large souvenir shops filled with beverages, bags of chips and lots and lots of souvenirs with Ohio on it.

“Man, I gotta head over there,” Noble said, indicating the restrooms. Shaw nodded in return. “Get me a burger or something, please?”

“No problem,” Shaw replied, but the man seemed distracted. He was scanning the rest area while the others stood in line in front of the Burger King station at the food court. There were a few more at the pizza place and another at the Mexican place, apparently craving tacos.

Noble dismissed Shaw, the man was always paranoid, always looking for something. The pain in his kidneys and bladder was much much more important to deal with. He stepped into a kind of half-jog to head toward the bathrooms, pausing for a moment to study a monitor set high on a support pole that showed the weather.

There was a short line out of the door for the women's restroom. The men's room was almost empty. Noble shot down the hallway, realizing that there were two areas of stalls and urinals and choosing the one furthest down the hall. He barely reached one of the urinals, got his pants undone, and then there was blessed relief. He thought, there are few sensations in this world better than when you really have to go and then get a chance to relieve yourself. How is that possible? Life was strange even before you threw in the knowledge of alternate dimensions and realities.