The town wasn’t very big from what Daniel could tell. It didn’t take them ten minutes to get out of the populated area and into the fields stretching up to the horizon. The road was speckled with pools of muddy water reflecting the cloudy, gray sky. It wasn’t particularly cold though; considering wheat rising on both sides of the traveling trio, it could be early autumn or late summer – Daniel wasn’t very knowledgeable in agriculture.
There were no people around. Not in the houses, not on the road, not in the fields. Chirping birds, wind rustling leaves of rare trees allowed to grow between the wheat and the road and, every now and then, a splash of water as one of them stepped into a puddle were the only sounds they heard. The odd, lonely silence filled the air between them. Daniel recalled how one summer he took a long walk back home at around five in the morning. It might have been Sunday back then since there was nobody on the streets as the sun was already shining on the eerily quiet houses. He could almost believe all people suddenly left the area the night before and the buildings were now empty; what he could almost believe back then, he was supposed to take in now as truth.
The road led straight ahead. As the terrain was uneven, it disappeared from sight for a bit to reappear further into the fields. The grass was chewing on its sides, prying ever deeper, but the two trails right next to each other were still firmly holding on, indicating a relatively regular four-wheeled vehicle usage. The path continued on and on, eventually leaving the fields behind and entering a dry needleleaf forest. Numerous slim pines were climbing high, as if trying to reach the clouds, leaving the ground bare except for large patches of moss with rare strands of grass visible here and that added some green to the otherwise brownish ground and tree trunks. The road itself was littered with dried needles, remainders from previous seasons along with black cones kicked to the sides by all the previous travelers treading the path.
Daniel looked back, but, as expected, nobody was following them. The town was already far behind; they have walked for quite a while now.
“Where are we headed to?” he asked.
“I told you before, to the portal beacon. This road is supposed to be leading there,” Sara answered as she took a look around. “Noticed anything unusual?”
He did. The fog was thinner here and it looked like it would disappear if they were to continue heading down the road. As he shared his findings with her, she nodded in acknowledgment.
“Even if it’s safe around the portal, we still have to seal it,” she explained. Sealing a portal sounded a lot like something from fantasy or medieval castle architecture and David doubted they’d have much to do with the latter today.
“Does it have anything to do with all those dead people?”
“What do you think?” Sara snorted. “It’s a standard procedure and we are likely the only ones around who are alive enough to do it. Unless there are still living people at the beacon,” she added.
There weren’t.
The outpost they reached after another few tens of minutes was completely abandoned, as they would soon find out. A T-shaped building immediately reminded Daniel of a two story home with a big garage. As they approached it, he mentally noted it looked far better than a lot of lousy looking dwellings at the outskirts of the town. It seemed well maintained too and with flowers planted just outside the entrance, one would certainly feel welcome if he would ever decide to ring a bell hanging next to the door and go inside. Well, maybe not necessarily in current circumstances.
The garage part was where Sara and Ana were headed instead, so he followed. Sturdy wooden gate of a size allowing a carriage or a small truck to pass through didn’t promise ease of entry, though neither did it pose a problem for an ogre. She smashed the edge to get a better hold on it, then opened it without much sweat. Standing on the side, Sara gave her a disapproving look and pointed to a normal sized door right next to the gate, left ajar by whoever was escaping this area last. Ana shrugged as she scanned her hands for any splinters the unusual method of lock picking might have left. Daniel glanced at the windows of the house, but there was no indication of anyone noticing the commotion outside or making commotion inside. One would undoubtedly cause the other, as tearing the gate open made quite a lot of noise.
There was a single large room inside. Walls were cold and left without any decoration. What surprised Daniel was that there wasn’t any floor, just bare ground, which made the whole thing look more like a barn than anything else. Instead of hay laying near the walls, an almost black platform rising maybe three inches above the ground level stood in the center, right before their eyes. As Sara went around it, sidestepping a large wooden dresser someone decided to drag here then knock over onto the granite dais, he noticed an average sized tablet made from the same dark material seemingly floating in the air. The blonde girl approached it, eyeing it intently. She stood still for a few seconds, then turned around and left the building, passing Daniel on her way out. Confused, he followed her without taking a better look himself. Ana was waiting for them in the yard, basking in the sun that emerged from the clouds.
“Wracamy?” she asked.
Sara looked at the sky. A few hours might have already passed since noon.
“Nie dzisiaj, za późno. Sprawdź dom,” the blonde answered and the ogre went inside the house. This time the door was left intact as it wasn’t locked in the first place. Ana groaned as she leaned down to fit in the doorway designed for average humans.
“So where’s the portal?” Daniel inquired, feeling pretty lost. Sara looked at him in silence for good few seconds before replying.
“You already saw it inside.”
Did he now? Was it that black stone thing?
“And what about sealing it or whatever?”
“Already done.”
“What? How?”
Sara kicked a small stone from under her feet, grunting with irritation. She had a hard time getting used to his story and how he apparently didn’t know anything.
“It’s damn basics. You can’t transport shit if there’s something in the way,” she explained grudgingly, then headed towards the house, stopping him from following with an icy stare. Not having anything better to do, Daniel went back to examine what must have been the portal, the beacon or the portal beacon, one of those at least.
He stood and wondered what could have been sealing the device for a few minutes before realizing what was obvious to Sara. Assuming the stone platform was indeed the beacon, the drawers and their contents sprawled around were what was blocking the means of transportation. That would mean that as long as any foreign object interfered with some kind of space reserved for the portal, it was as good as broken. Would removing the collapsed piece of furniture make the thing work again? Daniel was tempted to try, but reminded himself his new companions might not like the idea. Giving the dresser a light kick, he moved on to the tablet.
His eyes were not fooling him, it was definitely floating. He tried waving his hand close to it from all sides, above and below, looking for some strings that would hold the dark block in the air, but found nothing of the sort. Upon closer inspection, there was nothing on it either, the surface perfectly flat and polished. It would be probably gleaming if any direct sunlight was reaching far enough inside. Daniel tried imitating Sara and stood in front of the tablet, hoping for some spontaneous interaction, but nothing exceptional happened, or anything at all for that matter. Remembering touch screens from the world he was in just yesterday, he placed his hand on the floating stone, to no avail. It certainly looked like it could be a control panel, so why didn’t it react? Was a special action, some spell required for the activation? He struck his head with open palm. Of course it didn’t work, the damn dresser was in the way.
The platform was firm just like the material used for it would suggest, whatever exactly it was, and held Daniel’s weight without the slightest problem, looking like it could easily take on ten Daniels and then some more. He looked up, but only the wooden roof of the barn-like building was above him; the beacon didn’t have any ceiling of its own as far as he could tell. Hopping on top of the podium, he closed in on the dresser. A few drawers slid out on their own or with someone else’s help, littering the flat surface with pieces of paper, envelopes, handkerchiefs and a few pair of white socks contrasting with black stone even in the heavy shade present in the building. He picked one of those up, wondering if he should clean up after all.
How did the transportation work? Since it was called a portal, was it teleportation? It could definitely pass as a plausible explanation in what was probably a different world, as unreal as it sounded to him. The only other option Daniel could think of was an underground tunnel, but honestly the quite large platform looked way too heavy to be easily moved and opened without a mechanism that was nowhere near in sight, not to mention the stone itself looked embedded in the ground rather firmly, so he discarded that thought.
Teleportation it was, then. Assuming it didn’t work at the moment, would he benefit from activating it? Would he be able to operate it at all? Sara called sealing it a standard procedure, but a standard procedure of what scenario?
Right, dead people. Daniel found it almost funny how he managed to forget for a moment about the bodies he saw in the town. Maybe the situation was too surreal for his mind to completely process. Of course if a disaster like that happens, you would want to seal the area off, prohibiting anyone unauthorized from entering or leaving before a proper investigation is carried out, and the town certainly didn’t look taken care of. Was that it? Was Sara an investigator after all? But then again, didn’t they already leave the town? And, more importantly, where was the person who dragged the dresser over here? Someone must had done it, disabling the portal for themselves, forced to leave on foot. Or maybe the person never left?
By the way, weren’t the other two searching the house right now?
Daniel tossed the socks he held aside and quickly left, curious of their findings. The portal didn’t look like it would run off anywhere soon, thus could wait.
The sun hid behind the clouds again and the forest regained its uniform, brownish-green color. There was nobody in the yard waiting for him, so he took a second to look at what was the living part of the building. Two windows per floor, all of them with light curtains, one also adorned with a flowerpot, a simple way to give a room some character. The roof was quite steep, possibly concealing an attic as well. The walls were painted in a light, yet warm yellow, inviting guests and travelers alike. Stepping inside, he sighed with relief, unable to smell the horrible stench of death he woke up to not so long ago. The people living here were either still alive or long gone.
He didn’t get to inspect the interior as right away he almost bumped into Ana leaving from a room to the left of the entrance.
“Find…?” noticing him, she started with a smile that quickly turned into a frown as she couldn’t remember a proper English word. She eventually gave up and reverted to the foreign language. “Znalazłeś coś ciekawego?”
Tone of her voice was suggesting it was a question, but unable to understand anything more, he only shrugged. The giant took it as an answer and nodded. She patted him lightly on the back and pointed upstairs, leading the way.
The second floor was a corridor maybe 8 yards long with a pair of rooms on both sides. One door was wide open and Sara was struggling with one of the others that didn’t want to budge even an inch. She cursed as she took a key out of the hole; the change in posture revealed a whole keychain in her other hand. Trying one after another, she eventually found the right one. A soft clicking sound came from the lock and the door finally gave way. Sara took a look inside.
“Guest rooms, small, but will do”, she explained, apparently aware they were observing her. She closed the door and tossed the keychain to him. He caught it, noticed there were far more keys than there were doors on this floor and immediately understood Sara’s frustration. He could swear he caught a glimpse of a smirk on her face when he looked up again.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I’m taking the one on the other side, you can pick whichever of the rest you like,” the blonde said. “We’re staying here for the night.”
“So there’s nobody else around?” Daniel asked as he glanced at the keys in his hand once more.
“They weren’t too keen to keel over, who would’ve thought,” Sara retorted, not trying to hide the sarcasm in her voice at all.
“They ran from the same thing that killed all the townspeople?”
“Are we really going to do this?” McDonahan shook her head in disbelief. “Yes, it was creeping death. We didn’t really check the bodies, I hope you get why, but I bet it did most of them in. Maybe everyone, maybe not, who cares? The town’s done for anyway.”
He could easily believe that.
“Is this why the portal has to be sealed?”
“Congratulations, you got it!” she clapped her hands in mocking approval.
“But what is this creeping death?” Daniel mused before realizing he said it aloud. He didn’t want to ask about it directly, at least not now, expecting only more sarcasm thrown at him in response. He wasn’t far off. Sara let out a short, sinister laugh which sounded almost like a cough.
“Don’t you worry, if it really concerned you, you would be well aware of it by now.”
Grinning, she patted him on the shoulder as she went past him and downstairs, leaving them both. Daniel turned to Ana, who was inspecting one of the rooms near the staircase. He sighed with relief, it seemed like Sara only acted like she was locking doors back again so he didn’t have to play with the keys on his own. The ogre had to once again lean down to fit in the doorway. A disappointed look on her face suggested she didn’t like the inside much.
“Small beds,” she said half to him and half to nobody in particular and headed downstairs as well.
All of the guest rooms turned out to be nearly identical. Same beds, same basic furniture and not much space to move around. The accommodation didn’t appear designed for longer stays, which made a lot of sense. If you happened to reach the portal in the late afternoon, you could stay here, otherwise you would continue with your journey; the town probably offered a better place to stay. Daniel had to admit it looked cozy. The corridor and rooms were well lit with numerous windows while a light brown wooden floor and walls gave a warm feeling. Lying down in the evening and sliding under a soft blanket would undoubtedly feel really nice here. Surely enough, a blanket was waiting in a wardrobe standing in the corner of the room, along with a few white sheets. The owner was taking care of the house properly, until recently that is.
Daniel took a look out of the window. The forest behind the building was very much the same as anywhere around, so something else caught his attention. In the backyard, further away from the house, at the end of a narrow, but obviously often used path, there was a hole encircled with stone blocks, covered from rain by a rather crude, wooden structure with a roof. At about chest height there was a thick, cylindrical piece of a tree trunk stripped bare and put horizontally between the pillars supporting the roof, with a chain spun around it and a handle on one side. A medium sized bucket hung just below. Unmistakably, it was a well, of a type that would be considered an obsolete relic of the past back at home, and it seemed still in use.
Furrowing his brows, he turned away from the window and scanned the room. It didn’t really occur to him before, he was so used to having it everywhere, but there were no electrical outlets anywhere on the walls, no matter how hard he searched for them. There was a lamp on the small desk next to the bed, but it looked nothing like modern ones. Daniel didn’t really see any of those up close before, but strongly suspected it could be an oil lamp. It lacked any cable indicating electricity usage at the very least. Were there any power lines leading to this house? Were there any in the town? Daniel couldn’t really recall. Maybe the accommodation wouldn’t be as cozy as he thought.
Having picked his room for the night, he went downstairs to join his new companions. By this time, they checked all the other rooms on the first floor and were now busy going through some clothes that they apparently pulled out from some wardrobe in the building. Ana tried to measure a few bigger looking shirts against her body and had to put away each and every one of them as none were even close to the right size. Sara picked a light blue collared shirt and a pair of black trousers that already laid aside, now reserved for her use; she nonetheless kept going through the rest of the clothes out of curiosity.
Daniel watched the scene for a few seconds.
“Only borrowing or claiming permanently?” he asked with a smile.
“What, going to hold it against us?” Sara responded without turning around.
He wondered about it for a second, then shrugged.
“We don’t have our stuff with us,” she said. “It was supposed to be a short trip, check things out, go back, but...”
“But?”
“But it’s not your business,” the blonde corrected herself. “We stink, I want to wash it off and I have no spare clothes. Simple.”
Daniel nodded. It was simple indeed.
“Do you mind if I look for something for myself as well?”
“Do what you want,” McDonahan dismissed him as she grabbed a beige vest with an intricate horizontal pattern right below the neckline.
A brief trip around the house confirmed his fears. There was no electricity, no bath, no shower, no running water, not even a toilet. The interiors were welcoming, arranged in great taste, but lacking basic features a young adult from the 21st century was so used to, it betrayed any and all of his expectations. Daniel had no actual experience dealing with such issues, yet felt embarrassed to ask about them. It was one thing to inquire about an unfamiliar world and another to request instructions on how to wash own damn face. Confronting this grave matter, he decided to check out the well he saw in the backyard. It couldn’t be too difficult to operate.
As he went out of the building, he made a mental note to look for a toiled outside – it was hard to believe potential guests were supposed to just go defecate out in the open.
Reaching the well, Daniel realized what he first took for a hole was actually a heavy wooden cover. It made sense – the roof didn’t offer full protection from leaves and whatever other garbage could find its way outside with only a little help from the wind or animals. A small trapdoor in the middle of the cover allowed the bucket hanging from the chain to go inside and not much else. If someone wanted to take a dive or just clean the well, the whole wooden top would have to go first.
It turned out to be quite difficult to not immediately grasp how to use the windlass with its crank standing out on the side like a sore thumb, so Daniel could cross out the first point on his to-do list. The well was deep and while the bucket came down easily, pulling it back up required some effort. The reward was cold water that he splashed on his face a few times. It felt refreshing. He wondered if he could drink it too, but unsure about its quality he decided against it. What was he supposed to do with the water? Pouring it back into the well after using was likely not a good idea, but he couldn’t take it wit him as the bucket was stuck firmly to the chain and he had nothing else on him that could serve as a water container. With a heavy sigh, he spun around ready to head back in search for another bucket and, just like in the house some time ago, he almost bumped into Ana again. For a moment he wondered if he was so lost in thought or she was moving so quietly despite her size, but he brushed the thought aside. The ogre had a large cauldron with her that she held in both arms before her. As she put it down on the ground, he saw two buckets inside.
“Want... help?” she asked. He didn’t know if she meant whether he wanted help or wanted to help, but it likely didn’t make any difference.
It look several trips up and down for the well bucket to fill the cauldron, but with Ana’s strength it looked like nothing more than a child’s play. In fact she was so fast that Daniel worried the crank will just break from the sheer force applied to it. The chain creaked loudly as it was dropped down and yanked back up, but nothing bad happened. With all containers full of water, she gave the two buckets to him and lifted the cauldron by herself. If it was him, he would probably have to drag it on the ground and given the width of the path leading back to the house, the endeavor wouldn’t be a particularly enjoyable one.
As he didn’t know what the water was to be used for, he followed the ogre to the building and went after her when she took the second door on the right, barely fitting through with the huge pot still in her arms. Entering the room which he previously identified as the kitchen, he noticed two things, a small wooden tub he didn’t see there during his brief inspection, and topless Sara folding her clothes. The latter wasn’t there before either, doubly so not in her current undressed state.
“Sorry,” he blurted out on reflex. As the only response to that was the blonde girl rising her eyebrows, he slowly put down the buckets, unsure what to do. He found it difficult to not look at her small but perky breasts adorning her thin yet firm torso.
“Thanks,” she said calmly, apparently not minding revealing her body. “I’ll take a bath first, you can go next.”
Daniel looked at Ana.
“Small. You… go,” she informed him slowly, pointing at the tub. It did look a bit small for her, so maybe she decided to use something else instead.
As ogre put the cauldron full of water on the stove over in the corner, Sara approached Daniel.
“You can speak to her normally, you know. She may not be good at speaking Union, but she understands quite a lot, so you’ll be fine even if you don’t understand common language. Actually it’d be good if you did talk to her often, she could use some practice and it doesn’t work so well if it’s just us two.”
He nodded in agreement, though he was already mostly aware of what she told him. His attention kept returning relentlessly to inappropriate places, so he left the room to avoid any blunder. Ana soon followed, closing the door behind her. Sara seemed to be finally in a better mood, as evidenced by the melodic humming coming from the other side.
They went out back to fetch more water. As Ana was turning the crank, a question that was long bugging Daniel came up once more.
“What is creeping death?”
The giant looked at him, puzzled.
“Creeping death, what is it?” he asked again, only after realizing changing the sequence without changing the words probably didn’t help Ana grasp the meaning of the sentence.
“Creeping death? Ach, pomór? Hmmm...” She apparently recognized the name but now had a hard time forming an answer. “Pomór to… Bad… all,” she made a gesture with her left hand that Daniel did not recognize.
What could it be? Some kind of medical condition? Hell, maybe a fantasy creature that preyed on people? That could be very well be a possibility too for all he knew.
“Sickness? Disease?” he tried the first option.
“Yes, sick! All.”
“All sick? It affects the whole body?” he looked for a clearer picture, enforcing it for Ana with a gesture of his own.
“Mmm… All pure-blood. Human sick. No hybrid. No ogre sick. All... humans sick.”
Daniel felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
“You mean it affects everyone? Every human can contract it? And then what happens?”
As his agitated voice sped up, it also became harder to understand for her. Receiving no meaningful response, he shortened his barrage of questions.
“Human sick, then what?”
“Human…” she started, but then crossed her hands at the chest level. The bucket was already at the bottom of the well.
“Death?” Daniel helped with a word he’d rather not help with. It was all in accordance to what he already saw in the town and he had some time to sort his thoughts out, so it shouldn’t be too shocking for him, yet it was.
“Yes. Death,” Ana confirmed, then quickly added as if to comfort him. “You… good. You see pomór, you… death, no.”
That aligned with what he heard earlier today – he could see the creeping death. Was that the nature of the fog? Invisible to most, deadly to everyone? Or almost everyone, considering they were fine. He couldn’t see the damn purple thing here, so the building should be safe to stay in, yet nobody aside for them did. What was that Sara said? If it really concerned him, he would already know? The morbidness of the joke was hard to appreciate once he fully understood it.