The light was there before he had opened his eyes - the insides of his eyelids turning to sheets of bright, vibrant red. Chris opened them reflexively as the sound of a male voice woke him. He instantly wished he hadn't. White light flooded in and temporarily blinded him. He struggled to clear the cobwebs from his head so he could attempt to get a grasp on what was happening. Something was changing for him - there was suddenly something more than the darkness. There was light. It was what he had been waiting for.

  "Can you hear me? Wake up, man."

  Chris could see little more than blotches of brightness when he attempted to squint an eyelid, but the voice seemed to be coming from behind the source of the light that was being pointed at his face.

  "C'mon, now. You've got to wake up or I'll have to leave you. I need to get back in a hurry. Wake up. Fuck. Hurry, man."

  Chris felt the hardened toe of what could have been a boot prodding gently at his midsection. He struggled to sit up.

  "Ah, there we go. He ain't dead after all." The voice was young - Chris guessed still in its early teens. It possessed the wavering uncertainty of a boy sometimes surprised to find he was starting to sound like a man. Chris opened his mouth to reply, but didn't succeed in producing anything more than a low croak until his third attempt. He couldn't remember his mouth and throat having ever felt so dry.

  "Who are you?" The question was only one of a million he wanted to ask - that he needed to ask - but it seemed as good a place to start as any.

  The beam of light that had been directed at Chris' face shifted, and when he dared to open his eyes again he could vaguely make out the figure of a man as his eyes struggled to adjust.

  "My name's Daniel." The answer sounded almost cheerful. "Or Danny. As long as it's got Dan somewhere in it, I probably won't mind being called by it. So take your pick."

  The bright spots in his vision were slowly fading, and Chris could see that Danny was now pointing the flashlight he held at himself. Chris had been right about Danny's age. He had a boy's face, and a man's body. Danny looked like the kind of kid high school football coaches would drool over as linebacker material. Chris couldn't be certain on the accent, but he thought there was probably a good chance the boy was from somewhere down south.

  "Look, I hate to be in a such a hurry and all, but we really have to get movin'. The lights are fading, and I don't think they'll wait up for me much longer. I really shouldn't have fallen this far back as it is." Danny turned and looked nervously over his shoulder. Chris followed his gaze and at first saw nothing.

  "The lights are fading?" He asked. "What lights? Who's going to leave you?"

  Danny turned back to Chris with a look of exasperation. The way he was holding the flashlight pointed up at his face and upper body, his eyes seemed to glow.

  "Fuck." He turned again and pointed into the darkness. "You don't see those little dots of light? The four of them?"

  Chris strained to see what Danny was trying to show him. He could just barely make out three small points of white nearly lost in the blackness. He spotted the fourth a few seconds later, but it was off far to the left of the group.

  "Those're my friends." Danny said. "But they won't wait up for long. I'll explain it later, but we need to hurry right now. We've got to get moving."

  Chris stood up, his eyes never leaving the four points of light. Four points meant four people - or perhaps even more. He decided to ask Danny the obvious question.

  "Are you working with the people who put me here?" He watched Danny's response carefully. "Do you know what they want or what they're after?"

  A look of apologetic resignation came over the kid's features, and his large shoulders slumped a little.

  "I'm sorry, man. If I knew who'd put you here, trust me, I'd be wanting to ask them some questions myself. 'Cause I'd be pretty sure they were the ones who put me here, too." And then Danny's nose wrinkled slightly. "Do you smell that?"

  Chris tried to hide his disappointment at the kid's answer to his question. "Smell what?"

  "That bad stink." Danny turned the flashlight beam from himself and began to slowly pass it over the ground around them. "Smells like somethin's rottin’ somewhere around here."

  It was the first time that Chris had actually seen the ground that he had been walking on for the past days - the impossibly perfect surface that always felt a little cooler than it seemed it should have. It was a silverish color with an almost liquid sheen to it that was somehow unnerving. It looked like something out of a high-budget science fiction movie.

  "You don't smell that, man?"

  Chris followed the circle of light as it moved. "I've been here awhile. Not sure exactly how long, but awhile. So I can't smell it, but I know what it is." He sensed Danny turn to look at him more than he saw it - the flashlight did little to illuminate anything not directly in it's beam. "It's a body. Her name was Lynn."

  "What killed her?" Danny asked the question in a low, hesitant tone. Chris wondered if he really wanted to know.

  "A wolf, I think. I killed it, but I'm not completely sure that it was..." Chris struggled for the word he was looking for. "... normal." He looked for a sign of surprise or disbelief from Danny, but saw none.

  Danny's voice dropped to a whisper. "I don't think there's anything normal in this place, man. Not a damned single thing."

  The flashlight beam had stopped at a point on the ground about twenty feet from them. As the reality of what he was seeing sank in, Chris felt a wave of nausea hit him. He turned away from Danny and the light, and vomited. Or tried to vomit. The small pool of mucous liquid that he produced almost didn't count.

  Get a grip, ole boy. Get a grip. Things might be looking up in some fucked up way. So for Christ's sake just get a grip.

  "You, ok?" Danny asked him. "I don't know if any of that blood's yours, but either way you don't look too great."

  He had the light on Chris then, and as Chris followed his gaze to his own clothes he realized how he must have looked to the kid. His pajamas were no longer white - dried blood had turned them to a hue of darkened scarlet except for a few small patches. His feet were nearly entirely covered in crusted blood, and as Chris absently brought one hand to his face he realized that portions of it were covered in the same way.

  "I'll be fine.” Chris said. “Just hard to actually see her like that, especially for the first time. Spent a lot of time talking to her. Almost felt like I really knew her, but this is, sadly, the first time I've actually even seen her."

  "Yeah." Danny's apologetic expression then conveyed an empathy that appeared to be oddly genuine.

  "I probably shouldn't, but I need to look. Can I borrow your light for a second?" Chris asked.

  Danny handed the flashlight to him, and as he did so Chris was able to appreciate what a large gesture that likely was. In a sea of darkness, it seemed that light must be virtually priceless. Chris took the flashlight and walked closer to the strangely misshapen form on the ground. He shone the beam onto it, and licked his lips absently. Lynn hadn't died without a fight. Her body had begun to decay, but the handful of course, gray hair tangled in her right hand left little to the imagination. Chris again fought off a wave of nausea as he took in the site of what was left of her upper torso.

  It was obvious the wolf had worked quickly. The large, ragged cavity in her chest was gaped open to reveal rotting red flesh. A large chunk had been taken out of her face as well - from just below her left eye to the bottom of the fleshy portion of her cheek. The frozen scream on her face was given a sneer-like quality as the end of her upper lip had somehow become detached and curled up away from her mouth. It took a few minutes of studying Lynn's mangled remains for Chris to realize what was bothering him the most, though.

  Where are the bugs? A body rotting on the ground and there aren't any bugs? Maggots, flies, ants - this should be a fucking picnic for them... So where are they?

  He suddenly felt incredibly cold standing there analyzing her like that - felt like he owed her something he hadn't yet paid. There was no place to bury her. She would have to be left there as she was.

  Danny was getting anxious. "Really sorry about her dying like that, man. I know it's tough and everythin’, trust me." He was bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet in a way that was unexpected for a man his size - Chris thought he likely didn't even realize he was doing so. "I don't mean to be rude or anything, I just really have to get movin'. My friends will only wait for me so long. They don't have much choice - it's just the way it is."

  Chris stepped over Lynn and swept the light out farther - searching for the second body. He was surprised at how far it lay from where he had awakened. He wondered how much had had moved in his sleep - wondered how long he had slept.

  "It'll only take me a second. I just need to see what killed her. I killed it, but I didn't see it."

  The remains of the wolf were almost unrecognizable as any particular type of animal. Chris walked to them and crouched down. He shown the flashlight directly over the portion of the mound of fur and flesh he thought could have been the creature’s head and attempted not to gag at the smell. The thing had been big. It's body looked to be four or five feet in length, and even though he could vaguely remember bringing his fists down onto it countless times it was surprising to see how much damage he had actually done to it.

  The wolf’s head had been completely crushed in, as had much of its midsection. Fur, flesh, and bone had become one beaten mess. One yellow eye reflected the light almost defiantly from the crushed remains of the thing's face. A row of teeth was visible beneath it. Chris felt a chill wash over him. Its canines were well over an inch and a half long.

  I really am trying to morph into some kind of badass. I took this fucker on and won. Chris Porter actually killed a wolf with his bare hands. Let's hear any of the guys at the office top that one.

  He had taken a killer on in the dark and come away only slightly injured. Chris held his left hand up to the light and studied the deep gashes where the wolf's teeth had punctured through skin to bone. It looked bad, but he knew it had probably looked much worse. The wound seemed to be healing well. He flexed his hand and felt pain throb defiantly in his palm.

  A badass, maybe. But no hero. You let her die. It doesn't matter that you killed what killed her. You saved your own life, but you let this thing tear her apart while you listened.

  Chris found himself staring at that single yellow eye. It stared back at him as if it knew. Knew it would be able to haunt him long after it had rotted away to nothing. Chris heard the sound of Danny's boots on the ground behind him.

  "I'm ready to go." Chris said. "Sorry. I just needed to actually see it." He stood and handed the flashlight back to Danny.

  "It's no problem, man. We're just going to need to do a little jogging now. I've gotten too far out - if they lose sight of this light they won't wait up. They'll assume I've gotten my ass killed." Danny looked at Chris and seemed to be sizing him up. "Just follow my light. If you don't think you can keep up, holler - but I really can't slow down much. Really not meanin' to be rude. It's just survival here."

  Chris nodded. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm not as slow as I look, but if I fall behind, leave me. I'll follow your light and catch up if I can." He turned to search the darkness for the four points of light, but couldn't find them. His sense of direction had become virtually non-existent.

  "You have friends out there?" He asked.

  "Lot's of 'em." Danny answered. "But once I lose their lights, I might as well forget ever findin' them again. One of the reasons they send me out is 'cause my eyes are so damn good. I can see light from one helluva long way off. Just follow me."

  And then Danny began to run. Chris took a deep breath, and broke into a sprint behind him. His bare feet made considerably less noise than Danny's boots, and he found himself wondering how the kid could run any significant distance in that particular choice of footwear. He needn't have worried.

  They began at a pace slightly faster than a comfortable jog, but Danny slowly began to pick up speed. He would check back over his shoulder and flash the light behind him for a few seconds at intervals to make sure Chris was keeping up. Chris made every attempt not to fall behind - his eyes locked on the flashlight in Danny's hand as it swung back and forth erratically in the darkness with every step. His lungs began to burn, his breath coming in quick bursts. He forced himself to control his breathing as best he could whilst ignoring the growing fatigue he felt in every muscle, every joint.

  At some point Danny stopped checking over his shoulder, and Chris realized he was on his own. Either he kept up with the kid, or he didn't. Either he followed the light to some kind of hope, or he was left behind to wander the blackness alone. He pressed himself to run faster. His legs had begun to scream for mercy by the time Danny took his first short rest. He gradually slowed to a stop and looked back at Chris - his large chest heaving.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "How you holdin' up?" He asked through large breaths.

  Chris struggled for enough air to reply.

  "I'm hanging in there. Don't worry about me - I'll be fine. I can keep up."

  "Well, then, we'd better not take too long a break." Danny said. "Can you see them?"

  He pointed, and Chris realized they were visible to him again - three small pinpoints of light.

  "Where's the fourth one?" He asked after several seconds of searching.

  Danny had the light pointed at the ground then, but Chris could still see the worried look on the kid's face in the dim glow that emanated from it.

  "Wish I knew, man. It was there a few minutes ago I think, but it just went out all of a sudden." Danny's voice dropped, and he was muttering. "Goddamn him. He knows to keep his damned light on so we can see him. I'll fuckin' beat his ass. Shit. He always pulls that shit and worries half of us to damned death."

  He looked at Chris almost apologetically.

  "We have to get movin' again. Just remember to holler if you're gettin' too far behind." He said before breaking into a run again.

  There was no gradual increase in speed – this time they were sprinting almost immediately, and they held that pace for what seemed like a short eternity to Chris. He hadn't run so much since his high school days, and the fatigue he felt surprised him. He struggled to breath, struggled to ignore the muscles that screamed for him to stop. By the time Danny was ready to rest again, Chris had begun to question whether he would be able to keep up with him until they reached the lights. But he wouldn't say as much.

  Something told Chris that if he were to let Danny know he couldn't go on, Danny would wait for him. He didn't want that responsibility - he had already failed one too many people. He'd decided he wouldn't slow the large kid down - wouldn't stand in the way of him getting back to the people he called his friends. Chris would stay up the best that he could, and if he couldn't, he would let Danny leave him.

  Time became meaningless as the only thing that mattered was the next second, the next step. Chris saw only the light running away from him - attempting to leave him. He pressed himself beyond the point of fatigue, beyond the point where his legs should have simply given out. He ran on desperation alone.

  At some point the light finally began to fade, and he realized he had pushed himself as far as he could before he stumbled forward and let the blackness take him with one thought trailing him.

  Getting too damned old...

                       

  True consciousness eluded him, but Chris was vaguely aware of events happening as he slept. Large hands gripping him beneath his arms, then lifting him. A sensation of near weightlessness interrupted by rhythmic, jarring movement. A voice speaking to him, but making no sense as his mind refused to abandon its hibernation long enough to understand it.

  Fatigue had won. The ability to simply not care - to want nothing more than to continue to rest - had become the sweetest relief. He drifted in and out of various states of mental awareness - sometimes hearing, sometimes feeling, sometimes opening his eyes enough to catch a single frame of reality before again escaping to bliss. The frames began to mix and blur into something nearly tangible. He hadn't been abandoned. He understood that fact, and it was enough.

  He had acquired a new debt.

                       

  Danny Owen was tired. He paused and shifted The Stranger – the temporary title he had assigned the man -- slightly across his shoulders. He had begun to wonder how much longer The Stranger would be able to sleep. He had lost a lot of blood. Danny wasn't sure how much of the blood soaked into The Stranger's clothes was his own, but there was a steady trickle coming from the man's left palm. Danny had examined the wound and it looked as if it had been much worse at one time. He knew how quickly things could heal in this place, and so was unable to venture a guess as to when The Stranger might have acquired the damage. He scanned the darkness carefully. The fourth light hadn't been visible to him for some time, and with every passing hour his hopes that it had been turned off to conserve energy became less. Paul would have known better than to leave it off for such an extended period of time.

  Something had gone wrong. Danny had already said his last prayer for Paul. He hoped that it had at least been a quick death - Paul had been a better friend than most. Danny had hoped that he might stick around for awhile. He had understood Paul, and he thought that maybe Paul had understood him as well as anyone could in such a short time within a place like this.

  There were three lights remaining, and Danny could find them easily then. He had been walking with The Stranger thrown over his shoulders for what he guessed to be at least a half dozen hours, and the lights had continued to grow brighter against the darkness until Danny was sure he was within less than a mile of catching up to them. His friends were waiting for him to join them, but Danny was getting tired.

  The voices were louder than they usually were. He pressed himself to begin walking again. He didn't want to be a disappointment. He couldn't let The Stranger down, couldn't let the voices down. He had to be strong for them, had to be the Danny they counted on. The voices were always there now, and Danny knew it wasn't normal to hear them like he did. He thought that he was probably in fact going crazy, but that did nothing to make the voices any less clear, any less there. Danny heard his coach telling him he couldn't be tired - couldn't be tired because he had just gotten started. Coach Kraglin had never sounded so close - so real as he did then.

  You think you're tired? Listen to me when I talk to you, boy. I asked if you think you're tired. I don't give a rat's ass if you think I'm real or not. I don't give a shit if you think you're going crazy. I asked if you think you're tired, boy. Because if you do you're one hell of a goddamned pussy. I said you're a pussy if you think you're anywhere near tired. Do you hear me, boy? You don't know what tired is. I don't see the gallons of sweat. I don't see the blood and puke. I'll tell you when your ass is tired.

  Danny could hear other voices as well - some louder than the rest, some speaking only rarely. He heard his father. That low, slightly slurred speech that had always commanded attention more than any yell could have. Sometimes Danny could feel his father's eyes on him - watching him, examining him. He could feel his father's disappointment that anything could get his son tired. Danny was to be the strongest, the fastest, the biggest, the best. Danny was going places. That was what he had always said.

  "He's going to make me real proud one day. That boy's going places. Even if he wasn't my son, I'd be able to tell just looking at him."

  And so Danny always tried a little harder, pushed himself a little faster. He had been good. He missed the days when he could see the satisfaction on his father's face after a game. He missed the cheers from his friends - the cheers from everyone as he lived up to his potential. He missed the smile on his mother's face as she saw just how proud his father was of him. Her voice was one of the few he had to listen carefully for to even hear. Sometimes he wished he could have the silence back - that the voices would go away at least for awhile. But Danny didn't think he would want to live in the place that he was now forced to face if they were to leave him for good. Who would tell him what he needed to do? Who would be there to tell him how proud they were of him - how well he was doing?

  Danny clung to the voices because he needed them. He didn't really believe he was going crazy, just that he was blessed. The people he cared about weren't gone - he wasn't alone like so many of his friends. Sometimes he even talked back to the voices in his head. He did it then, as he struggled to keep placing one foot in front of the other. His thighs burned with every step, his legs protesting the extra weight he refused to put down even long enough to take a rest.

  Danny didn't have time to rest. He needed to catch up to his friends, and he wasn't sure he would be able to get back up and start again if he allowed himself to stop.

  "Dammit, I know I'm not tired, coach. I just keep feeling it in my legs. Not meaning to whine or anythin' - it just hurts like hell. This guy's really not all that heavy. I've just gotten a little out of shape. Hard to work out like I should while I'm here. Soon as I get back home, the first thing I'm gonna do is start workin' out again. Start squattin' real heavy and everything. I'm just a little out of shape, that's all."

  He peered into the darkness and examined the lights. They were growing faster - were close enough for him to tell which direction the flashlight beams were being pointed. His friends were breaking the rules. They had stopped moving. They were waiting for him to catch up.

  "Time to get movin' a little faster." He was talking to The Stranger. "I'm going to try to pick up the speed a little bit, so it might get a little bumpy. Just hang in there. We're almost there."

  Danny paused for a moment more to catch his breath. Breathing had become almost painful for him. He pushed The Stranger's weight higher up behind his neck, and tightened his arms around The Stranger's legs and torso.

  "Time to suck it up."

  Danny Owen needed to run, and so he did.

                        

  "Can you still see it?"

  "Yeah, I can still see it. But I think it's only because they haven't moved in awhile, and it's getting harder. I'm afraid to look away even for a second now because I might not be able to find it again. I'm starting to get scared, John. We need to hurry. Danny needs to hurry."

  John could hear the urgency in Lisa's voice. He scanned the portion of blackness that she was staring so intently at, but could see nothing. Not a damned thing.

  "Just so you're absolutely sure that you can see it. Because I'm looking, and I'll be damned if I can see anything."

  Lisa nodded slowly. "John, if I say I can see it, trust me. I can see it. But I don't know for how long. If they move any further away from us, I'll lose them. Please tell me Danny's almost here. I'm almost scared to blink."

  John turned to find the light that was fast approaching them from the opposite direction. "He's coming. Almost here. Just relax, we're about to be moving again. Not sure what's taken him so long to get to us - something's got to be slowing him down."

  The light was flailing wildly as it neared them. John turned to the third member of their trio and flashed his light at him.

  "Corey, you awake?" He shone the light directly down at the man's face.

  "Shit. I'm awake. Christ. Get that thing out of my eyes. I'm going to go blind." Corey swiped one hand in front of his face as if the flashlight's beam could be swatted away. "Is he almost here?"

  "Yeah." John managed a weak grin. "You can't hear those damned boots?"

  There was a short quiet as both men paused to listen, and the familiar sound of hardened soles clapping rhythmically against the ground was unmistakable to them. Corey picked his light from the ground where it lay beside him and stood slowly.

  "Well, it's about freakin' time." He said.

  John grunted. "He doesn't sound right. Not running like he normally does."

  They watched the light grow as it closed in - its brightness diminished by the fact it was being allowed to hang towards the ground as it moved. Both men directed their own lights toward it and watched as the shape of a man emerged from the darkness into their beams. John knew how big Danny was, but was at first taken aback at the size of the form that appeared - until he realized it was in reality two men. Danny was carrying a second person across his shoulders. John felt something akin to awe at the realization of just how easily it seemed the boy could handle the additional weight of what appeared to be nothing less than a fully grown man.

  Danny collapsed to his knees in front of them, and John and Corey moved quickly to remove the weight of the newcomer from his shoulders.

  "Thanks." The single word might have been all that Danny could manage between huge, labored breaths.

  They laid the man down and John checked his wrist for a pulse. The man was alive, but looked extremely pale. His clothes were covered in blood. John could find evidence of only one wound on the man's left hand, and, despite the fact it appeared to have been healing for weeks to his trained eyes, John guessed it be no more than a couple of days old. Blood had crusted around it, some of it still not fully dried. The wound had probably bled for quite some time.

  John studied the newcomer thoughtfully. "Damn. You outdid yourself on this one. Can't believe you ran with this guy. You alright? Breathing a little hard there."

  Danny waved one hand in an offhanded manner. "I'll be ok. Didn't have much choice but to carry him. I knew I was already late." He wiped one arm across his forehead to clear the pouring sweat and pointed to The Stranger. "He was bleedin' a lot worse, I think. I owe you for waitin', man - owe all of you."

  Corey snorted and brought his light to bear on the stranger's face.

  "Shut up, kid. You know you would've done the same. We gotta stick together. We all know it. You either stick together or you die." A tired look came over his worn features and he looked at Danny. "Paul's gone, kid. We lost him - wasn't anythin' could be done about it."

  "He let his light go out." John said. "He let his goddamned light go out again. Fuck." He shook his head in disgust. "We let him come. We let him come."

  "He wouldn't have taken no for an answer." Lisa's voice startled all three men. It was entirely too easy to forget that anything existed outside the immediate glow of their lights. She stood only a few yards away, her back to them.

  "I'm sorry, Danny." She said. "If there had been anything we could've done to find him, you know we would have."

  Danny only nodded.

  "Can you still see them?" He asked.

  Lisa nodded, but still didn't turn. "Barely. We really need to get moving as fast as we can. I'm sorry - I know you're tired. If I thought we had more time I'd say go ahead and take a rest, but I really don't think we have much longer before I lose them. It's going to get to the point where I'm not even sure if I'm actually seeing their light anymore or if it's just my eyes playing tricks on me. We need to get closer - fast."

  "Do you know this guy's name?" Corey asked. He nodded towards where the stranger lay.

  "Never got a chance to ask him." Danny answered. "We had to get movin' pretty fast. He dropped out behind me and I almost lost him when we were running. Had to carry him the rest of the way. I've been calling him The Stranger."

  "You're strong as an ox, kid." Corey said as he eyed the man's limp form carefully. "Think it'll take me and John both, but we'll carry him for awhile - give you a break. But like Lisa said, we got to get movin' again. We're pushin' our luck."

  Danny got to his feet. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine. Was a little out of breath, but I'm good to go now. If you two want to carry him for awhile, I'll take him in a few minutes."

  John turned off his flashlight. "We should turn out our lights for awhile since we're all together again - it'll conserve some battery power and make it easier for Lisa to see the camp's light."

  Each of the other two men flipped out his light in turn, and the small group was plunged into darkness.

  "You guys ready to move?" Lisa asked.

  "We'll follow you."

  "Ok, then. Let's get going, boys."