Authors: S. E. Campbell

What Following Brings (2 page)

BOOK: What Following Brings

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Henry moved to follow her.
“
Why don
'
t weâ
”

The earth began to
g
rumble below them and
the
screams of the living filled the night. Rebecca grabbed onto Henry
'
s arm
, her eyes wide with fear
. The air began to smell of sulfur, and
she could swear
she heard
howls
.
She lost her footing and fell to her knees with Henry beside her.

“
Rebecca, look up,
”
Henry said, open mouthed.
“
What is happening? It
'
s like the earth is screaming.
”

Rebecca threw back her head and
gazed
into the sky. As the
ground
continued to rumble, the sky above them grew black. Blacker than the blackest of nights. There were no clouds, no stars, no nothing. It was just darkness so thick it could choke whoever
was enveloped by it
.
The
darkness filled the streets around her, and every street lamp, every shop light,
went
out.

The
earth
groaned,
and Rebecca
yelped and gripped the ground
. She
looked
up just in time to see a young,
blond
haired
,
woman sitting on the street corner
,
weep
ing
. Behind
the blonde woman
, a massive shadow approached. When
she focused upon the shadow
, it revealed itself as a handsome brunette with cruel eyes. But there was something about him. Something Rebecca didn
'
t like.

The man wrapped his arms around the woman
;
she screamed and thrashed and struck out at nothing.
She can
'
t see him,
Rebecca thought, but she made no move to help her. Then the impossible happened.
Somehow, though she couldn
'
t see how, the ghost killed the woman. One minute she was squirming and writhing, the next she was laying unmoving upon the ground.
Souls
couldn
'
t do that. They could har
dly touch the living, let alone kill someone.

“
No,
”
Rebecca whispered.

“
Rebecca,
”
Henry said, moving in front of her protectively.

“
What
'
s going on?
”
Rebecca asked.
“
What is this?
”

She watched the man drag the woman into an alleyway by her hair. To her left, Rebecca heard horrible laughter. Laughter she recognized. A strange white mist covered the streets. Mist she did not understand
because it moved purposefully and mindfully, like it was more than just vapor
.

“
Raiders,
”
Henry said.

“
What?
”
Rebecca asked.

“
Raiders. Satan Spawn,
”
Henry said. He seized Rebecca
'
s shoulders.
“
S
omething has happened. These monsters
were
only in Zemiothstai, but now they
'
re
on
E
arth and they
'
reâ¦
”

Rebecca
heard the sound of whispering
from the white mist figure
.
Familiar
whispering.
There was then the sound of laughter.
The laughter belonged to her daughter, Eden.

“
Mom, why did you leave me?
”
Eden asked.

“
Eden?
”
Rebecca
cried
eyes wide.
“
You
'
re here? How?
”

Henry seized her arm.
“
She
'
s not here. Satan Spawn mimic your loved ones. Run as fast as you can to the nearest portal
to Zemiothstai. I
'
ll meet you there
. Try to survive.
”

“
Survive?
”
Rebecca
'
s eyes widened in fear and her
stomach dropped.
“
What will the Raiders
do to me if they catch me?
”

“
Run. Don
'
t find out.
”

Turning, Rebecca began to sprint down the sidewalk. She knew she should have bothered to ask what Henry was doing or where he was going, but she was too scared. Instead she headed toward the next portal to Zemiothstai, the one she had seen inside
a clothing
store
fifteen minutes earlier
.
As she ran, the white mist grew thicker and thicker.

“
Mom,
”
Eden said.
“
Mom, please come home. I miss you so much.
”

“
Be quiet.
”
Rebecca moved her hands over her ears as she ran.

“
Mom, why am I never good enough for you?
”
Eden asked.
“
I tried so hard to be a good daughter.
”

She let out a desperate cry. It was like these monsters, these
“
Raiders,
”
were digging into her mind and bringing up what she least wanted to hear. She tried so hard not to think of her daughter. She didn
'
t want to remember her, didn
'
t want to think about what she said. But nowâ¦

“
Mom, I love you,
”
Eden said.

There was silence as Rebecca kept running. White faces began to appear around her. The faces had no eyes
and no nostrils
. They were just pure white masks of horror among a sea of mist.

With a scream, Rebecca
moved
left and headed into the store where she had seen the passage to purgatory. The passage was a glowing white
disk
above the counter. As she sprinted toward it, running through clothes and knocking over hangers, she heard a woman screaming from outside the window. Rebecca
looked
over her shoulder and stopped in horror.

One of the Raiders stood in full form above a huma
n victim. The Raider was six fee
t tall, possibly even seven, and had the body of a thin
woman
with pupil-less eyes.
The Raider
held onto a plump, middle-aged brunette woman with a grocery bag on her arm. The Raider
'
s mouth opened wide, showing strings of white energy where teeth should have been. The woman screamed and writhed but
her wailing
did not stop the Raider
. Instead Rebecca watched as
long white strands of energy
poured from the woman
lips
and
were sucked into the Raider
'
s mouth
. The woman
became
surrounded by an aura of pure black.

The Raider released the woman and
looked
through the store window, straight
at Rebecca
. The woman crumbled to her knees, silently rocking back and forth. Rebecca gasped and sprinted toward the portal
. When
she reached it, she thought,
I don
'
t know what
'
s going on, but I got the message. Heaven help me, I
'
ve got to find my way back to Eden.
I don
'
t think I can survive in this world.

Chapter One

Eden Schmidt sat in a jail cell with her best friend, Adanna. She had her hand on her grandma
'
s wooden cross
which
hung around her neck, the one that had protected her from harm during her journey. When Eden
had
died last year after falling down the stairs, she had come to Zemiothstai, to purgatory, in a confused mess.
Her confusion
only got worse when Saint Peter, the man in charge of telling souls what they needed to do to get to heaven, gave her no tasks and mere warnings.

While in Zemiothstai, Eden had fallen into
a
cave in Moloch, an evil, demonic city.
She
ended up being trapped in the Church of Satan, a place where the ceilings bled and
the
faces of people being tortured covered every wall. It was there where she
had
discovered a paper
which
told her the plan of the Demon army, those
who
pledged to serve evil and all of its purposes. The plan was to use the Blood Stone, a legendary evil made from the blood of its victims, in order to close the gates of heaven.

Eden had been certain it was her job to stop this ceremony but
,
when she tried, she
had
failed. She was told by her dying guardian angel
that
her job was to reverse the Blood Stone ceremony and the only way to do that was to find the five special people
who
had such strong love in their hearts
that
they could fight evil. Eden had already found two of those people
:
Adanna and one of the Demon soldiers, Aaron.

Unfortunately, on her quest to find those five special people, she had ended up
here
.

Here in a prison cell on a boat, heading toward the Demon soldier prison called Cantica. Eden grimaced at the thought and ran her hand through her golden hair. Adanna
stared
at her with large, sad eyes. Adanna didn
'
t speak. Period.

“
I don
'
t think we marked the tally today, Adanna,
”
Eden said, grabbing a stick of charred wood from the ground. She stood up and
gazed
at the large wooden wall that was
coated
with hatch marks. She added a hatch mark and frowned as she counted.
“
I can
'
t believe we
'
ve been on this ship for thirty-three days. Over a month.
And I don
'
t know if it feels longer or shorter than it actually was.
”

She
would rather be here than where she was going.

As Eden continued to look at the wall, she heard somebody move
outside
her cell
door
. She didn
'
t bother to turn around
in case it was a soldier dead-set on taunting her
.
Her guards had been enjoying doing just so over the past month.

“
Psst,
”
a male voice said. Aaron.

With a grin, Eden whipped around and headed over to the door. Surprisingly, Aaron was the only one who stood
there today
.

“
Where are my two lovely guards?
”
Eden asked, looking around.
“
I didn
'
t see them leave.
Taking a break? They
'
ve never left me alone for more than two seconds
before
.
”

Aaron frowned.
“
Well, there
'
s good news and bad news.
”

Eden grimaced.

“
Okay, good news first.
”

“
You get to leave the boat,
”
Aaron said.

She grimaced, even though she felt a small sense of relief. She had been stuck on this ship
and
in this prison cell for far too long. The green moss on the wall co
uld only be so fascinating. Yet
leaving the boat
meant she was near Cantica, the Demon prison.

“
What
'
s the bad news?
”
Eden asked
, though she guessed she already knew what it was
.

“
We
'
re here,
”
Aaron said, frowning.
“
The guards are already preparing to have you unloaded.
”

Worry filled her. She grasped the bars of her
cell and groaned
.

“
What
'
s it like in there, Aaron?
”
she asked.
“
Is it as bad as everyone says?
”

“
Do yo
u want the sugar
-
coated answer
or the hard truth?
”
Aaron asked.

“
The real answer,
”
Eden said, already fearing what his
response
would be.

Behind her, Adanna stood up and migrated over to the cell door. She grasped the bars between her fingers
, also looking
out at Aaron with massive eyes.

“
There is a reason why Cantica is well-known for not having any escapees,
”
Aaron said.
“
The souls are kept the
re
and tortured. That is what this prison is known for. The torture chambers.
”

Eden
gazed
down at herself. Sure, as a soul she could feel pain, but she wondered what happened during soul torture.

“
How do you torture a soul?
”
Eden asked.

“
Well, there are
the normal ways like beatings, a
nd
then
there are
other
terrible ways.
”
Aaron shive
red.
“
They use Morsus
â
of course you
'
d remember the manic disease which causes
depression
and bad visions
â
to do it by keeping the Satan Spawn like Raiders and imps captive
. They
set them loose on you.
They steal your energy, allow you to suffer through the horrible images the soul disease gives you, and then give you a vial of holy water to recover. It
'
s not pretty. There is a reason why I alw
ays opted out of working in
Cantica
prison. I
'
m
only
going
t
here now because of you. I
'
ve got to find a way to get you out of there, hopefully before
General
Yuri
arrives
.
”

Hope filled her.

“
General
Yuri, the man
who is
being sent
to the prison
specifically to guard me, isn
'
t
there
yet?
”
Eden asked hopefully. Maybe
his late arrival
meant she had time to get out of the prison before he
arrived
and used her soul as a punching bag.

“
Even us Demons have trouble with the eternal night,
”
Aaron said quietly.
“
Satan Spawn are everywhere, and most of them don
'
t care about what color uniform you wear, as long as they are able to steal your energy or knock you back out of this world.
”

The sound of loud noises, of feet pounding on floors, could be heard above. Somebody yelled. Eden gasped and
looked
up.

“
I better leave before
Sergeant Dale
come
s down here to get you. I heard he was the
sergeant
in charge of the squad
who is
coming to pick you up,
”
Aaron said.
“
Got to remain undercover, at least until I can get you out of here.
”