Chapter 8

  The voices had become silent, and Danny realized he had, perhaps, had much more to drink than he could remember at that point. The bottles of champagne and liquor had been found in a bar in the mirage's study room -- one of the largest stashes he had ever seen. The camp had taken on a life of its own once the trailer was unloaded and the bottles were unveiled and rationed out. News of the deaths incurred while stripping the mirage had hit those in the camp hard, but the celebration over the supplies that had been successfully gathered was tradition of a kind.

  The celebration was, as Danny saw it, a way for those in the camp to laugh in the face of whatever forces had taken so many of their friends and companions. It was a way to give some purpose, however small, to their deaths. It was a way to honor them, and it was needed. Nasser, the out-spoken old man in the turban, had pulled out his flute and begun to play after only his first shot of tequila. The hand-made instrument was in no way beautiful to behold, but the sound it produced was clear and carried easily. Children gathered around him near the fire and twisted and clapped in their own early forms of dance - many of the adults not far behind after a few drinks.

  Danny held up the latest bottle to have found its way into his hand and peered at it. He was surprised at how difficult it was for him to focus his gaze. As he struggled to single out the correct bottle from an unsteady lineup of which he was sure only one could be real it became painfully obvious that he had drunk far more than he had thought. He set the bottle down and looked over towards the part of the camp where most of the children had congregated with the few remaining sober adults.

  Nasser had long since ceased his flute playing. Danny had developed a newfound respect for the old man's drinking prowess; he had downed more than a third of the total stash of tequila single-handedly before laying down his flute and rolling over to fall asleep. To his credit, Danny had thought the old man’s last hour or so of playing had been only slightly off-note. The children had continued to dance on their own until finally tiring one by one before being put to bed by their designated guardians for the night.

  There were few adults still on their feet, and the camp had quieted considerably other than the occasional drunken patch of laughter. Danny turned to look to where the boy named Triht sat staring silently at the fire. Danny wasn't surprised to find that he was one of the only children still awake. Cal had gone to sleep only a few feet from where the boy sat early on, but Danny had been able to slip a snack cake to him undetected. Cal had his reasons for keeping such a closely watchful eye over the boy, Danny knew, but the boy had been almost entirely cut off from the rest of the camp as of late. Sometimes Danny was unable to see the justification for treating Triht so differently even though he trusted Cal's judgment almost as blindly as he had trusted his own father's. He watched the boy for a few minutes.

  His gaze shifted to where Chris had passed out a few hours before. There were no blankets or pillows beneath him, as was the case with many of the bodies that lay strewn on the ground in a chaotic array around the campfire.   The man had been more than eager to drink himself into oblivion, and had taken to telling stories about his children to anyone who would listen before finally blacking out. Danny thought that, for a man who claimed he drank only on occasions when his wife would let him get away with it, he had done pretty well for himself. Sanchez had found a large selection of shot glasses among the things taken from the mirage, and Chris had had well over a dozen drinks from the largest of those.

  The voices Danny heard had become only muted whisperings from the farthest corners of his mind, and that was perhaps why he had allowed himself to drink so much. It was the first relief from them he had found since the first few cycles he had spent in the darkness. His coach's loud, barked orders had been silenced, his father's constant egging reduced to only the occasional grunt of disapproval at his son's inebriate state. Danny's father had always said that a man should be able to hold his liquor and still throw a solid punch. Danny swung his right arm and nearly lost his footing.

  "Can still throw a punch, old man." He said, his words more slurred than spoken, and to no one in particular.

  "Damn right."

  Danny turned in surprise at the voice that came from behind him and this time did lose his footing. He dropped to one knee and found himself looking up into the grinning face of a man he knew but took a moment to put a name to.

  "John." He said simply, and grinned back at the face that was dangerously close to becoming three in his vision.

  John grinned even wider and clapped him on the shoulder with a quick laugh. "He can still remember my name!" He said loudly. "You damned sure know how to drink, kid. You're doing good to remember your own name, much less mine. I think you downed even more than ol' Nasser over there." He nodded in the opposite direction from where the old man lay sprawled sleeping, but the fact was lost on Danny.

  "I'm none too steady myself, though, kid, to be completely and totally honest with you." John stated seriously. "I've had a few, I guess, but that doesn't change the fact that I wanted to tell you to your face that I owe you."

  He leaned over and his forehead nearly collided with Danny's. "This is pretty much as 'to your face' as I can get, I guess. And even though I know I'm completely fucking wasted, I want you to know I mean this when I say it. I owe you big for what you did for Lisa back there. I owe you for what you did to that vampire of a mother fucker. Lisa told me about it. Said she prolly wouldn't be here if you hadn't charged him like you did."

  Danny shook his head sloppily. "No. No, you don't owe me."

  John straightened himself.

  "Sure I do." He said indignantly.

  Lisa had joined him and began laughing beside him.

  "John, you're way too drunk for this." She said before turning to Danny and suddenly taking a more serious one. She pointed one finger at Danny's face and looked down at him where he knelt almost sternly. "He does owe you, and so do I. No arguing. You saved my life."

  Danny's eyes widened a bit and he only nodded dumbly. Lisa was holding a bundle of blankets in one arm, and she shifted them to her shoulder.

  "C'mon, John, let's go. If anyone looks for us we'll be spending the night outside camp." She said to Danny and winked before pointing over his head. "That direction. But if anyone decides they have to come looking for us warn them we might be a little preoccupied."

  John was grinning again. Lisa took his hand and steered him towards the edge of the camp.

  "See ya later, kid." John said.

  Danny watched them fade into the darkness as more than a handful of couplings had done already that night. He scanned the camp again lazily, his eyes stopping as they came to Triht. The boy was looking at him from where he sat. Danny grinned sheepishly at him, and Triht grinned back. The bonfire's flames suddenly leapt higher than they had been burning by what looked to be at least three or four yards, and as Danny turned in surprise he thought he could see patterns among them for a few moments. The flames seemed to be twisting as they rose, intertwining to form a kind of spiral. Danny watched mesmerized, but the phenomenon lasted only a dozen seconds or so before the flames died back down to their previous height. He looked back to Triht, but the boy had turned and was again gazing at the fire. Danny shook his head.

  "Way too much to drink." He mumbled. The ground where he knelt looked surprisingly attractive to him, and he found himself not so much lying down as falling to meet it.

  Without the voices he fell asleep in silence, and for the first time in nearly a hundred cycles, Danny dreamed.

                        

  Chris groaned as he sat up. The dull throbbing in his head brought with it a wave of nausea at his sudden movement, and for a moment he teetered on the verge of vomiting. The world around him spun for a few moments before finally coming into focus. Bodies lay strewn erratically around him - it appeared that he hadn't been the only one who simply slept wherever they finally passed out.

  Almost just like your college days, huh? He thought. You really should've known better than those last half dozen shots or so, though.

  Chris grinned dryly and waited for the nausea to pass. He took in the rest of the camp slowly as his vision adjusted with stubborn sluggishness. His eyes came to the part of the camp near where he had last seen Nasser playing his flute between drinks and stopped suddenly. He tensed as what he was seeing attempted to register but was unable to, his first thought being that he was still dreaming.

  Among a group of people sleeping a few yards from Nasser there was a creature that couldn't have possibly belonged in the waking world. It stood only about four feet tall and was hunched over strangely. Its skin was a dark grayish hue, its short, awkward body seemingly ill fit for its long limbs. Chris thought it looked comical as he caught sight of one of its large hands - each finger a different length and shape, and the nails at their ends so long they were visible from across the camp. The creature's face was almost impish. It glistened strangely in the firelight and Chris was only able to tell that it was covered in a dark substance. Something other than hair grew from the top of its head, and its face was strangely oriented around its mouth, which was extremely wide. The creature opened its jaw for a moment and Chris caught sight of rows of sharp, angular teeth before it hunched farther over and its head disappeared from view. The comical impression it had first had suddenly no longer fit. A sense of dread hit Chris then -- a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he shook his head despite his hangover's strong objection. He needed to wake up, because something was very wrong.

  Wake up, goddamnit. He thought. Wake the hell up and get a grip. There's no way that thing is real. You're drunk and you're delirious, but there's no way in hell it's real.

  Chris looked up and cursed under his breath when he could still see the top of the thing's back where it was hunched.

  A wolf is one thing, ol' boy. He thought. But this is something completely different. Whatever that thing is, it's not something you would ever see on the Discovery channel. It wasn't covered in an episode of a nature show you never saw, it was never on any endangered species list. It isn't real.

  But it was becoming harder to believe he could still be dreaming. His head was clearing and his vision had come into full focus. The thing he was seeing wasn't going anywhere. He raised himself slowly to his knees to see above the sleeping bodies that littered the ground between him and it, attempting to see what the creature was hunched over. The sick feeling at the core of his gut froze solid and a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as Chris realized what he had been watching. The thing was feeding. It looked up again and Chris understood why its face was reflecting the light wetly, he understood why the sides of its cheeks moved rhythmically, and the world began to spin and he was still struggling to raise himself higher because he could see more and more of what was under the creature as he rose and

  oh God i don't want to see this i don't want to see this Jesus Christ don't make me see this

  the thing was chewing as it seemed to look at him almost casually, and there was a body beneath it but only the head was visible from beneath the creature's form and it had long hair and it was a she and she would never wake up again, would she? Because there was no way that she could still be alive. The creature hunched over once again and this time Chris was able to see clearly as its jaws opened and it tore a strip of flesh from the soft area between the body's shoulders.

  And he wanted to scream. He wanted to scream because there were so many people sleeping around her as she lay dead. He wanted to scream because he was seeing what he shouldn't be seeing -- the nightmare wouldn't end and let him wake up -- but he couldn't because he was doubling over as a wave of uncontrollable dry heaves hit him. He fought to stand even as he vomited what little liquid was available for him to bring up. A scream pierced the air and Chris at first thought he had somehow managed to force his lungs to work through it all, but it wasn't from him. He looked back towards the creature and saw that the source of the sound had been a small girl not far from where it fed. She sat perfectly still shrieking again and again. It was as if she was unable to move.

  She has to see it, too. Chris thought. What version of hell would make her see it, too? She's only a girl.

  His legs began to move of their own accord and he was stepping over and between bodies as he attempted to close the distance between him and the girl. He had seen her before in the camp but couldn't place where or when. All that mattered was reaching her before she had attracted the attention of the creature only yards from her. Her screams were amazingly loud for her size, and there was movement in nearly every direction as he made his way towards her. People were waking up, but they were going to be too late.

  They would all be too late. The creature had stopped feeding and turned to scrutinize the source of the strange, shrill noise it was hearing. Chris watched it as it cocked its head to one side in puzzled curiosity. The look it gave the small girl caused the creature to again strike Chris as looking comical, the sickening thought that the thing might have been somewhat cute had it not been chewing on human flesh was absurdly present. Screams and yells began to emanate from everywhere in the camp as others woke to see what had the little girl petrified.

  You've got to get to her before it does. His thoughts were strangely calm. Christ. Please let me get to her in time. I can't take watching someone else die. I can't let a little girl die right in front of me.

  Someone moved to get up as he was stepping over them and he tripped, still stumbling forward. He looked up again as he regained his footing and his heart skipped a beat. The creature was no longer standing over the body it had been feeding on. The distance between it and the girl had shortened. It was moving, but slowly, its head still cocked to one side as if unable to determine why the girl was creating the noise in the first place. It was closing on her but Chris had been fast enough, and as he reached the girl he scooped her up into his arms and stopped, finding himself standing face to face with the impossibility of the thing approaching her.

  It was short, only about four feet tall, and it stood slightly hunched at the shoulders with its arms dangling awkwardly at its sides. Its appearance belied its movement -- there was a fluidity, a quickness to every move it made. Chris got the impression the thing could move much faster than it appeared. It was still approaching slowly, and so he back stepped to match its advancement, but it seemed to lose interest as the girl quieted. Chris held her close, whispering soothingly to her as his own heart threatened to beat from his chest. The speed at which the creature returned to the body it had been feeding on was unexpected, its form seeming to blur seamlessly from one point to the other in less than the blink of an eye.

  Jesus Christ. Chris thought. I've lost my mind. There's no going back after this. I'm seeing the impossible. Kansas is gone, and I haven't been given the magic words to get me back. Maybe one of the biggest stories in the history of journalism, and if I ever wrote a word of it I'd be wearing a straight jacket within the hour.

  There was a wordless yell as a short, burly man clutching a baseball bat in one hand charged at the feeding creature. Chris recognized him as having been one of the heaviest drinkers from the previous "night's" festivities. His name was Ryan, and Chris watched him as he swung the simple weapon furiously at the creature as he reached it, only to find that the thing had seen him coming and was no longer there. It had moved with the same blinding speed it had previously shown, and as Ryan's swing missed widely the creature launched itself at him from the side with enough force to knock the man off his feet. There was nothing comical as Ryan's yells were cut off, nothing awkward about the way the creature twisted it's neck to allow its jaws to snap quickly over the front of the man's head, enveloping the entirety of his face as its rows of teeth sunk into either side of his skull effortlessly. The creature jerked Ryan's head back and forth violently in its jaws as his hands beat weakly at its body for only moments before falling still. Chris put the girl down without even allowing himself to process what he was about to do.

  He hadn't been the only one to see Ryan's demise come about in the dozen seconds it had taken, and he wasn't the only one who charged the creature then. He had seen Danny moving from across the camp briefly out of the corner of his eye, as well as men from nearly every other direction, but his attention was focused entirely on the thing feeding on fresh meat in front of him. He wanted to be the first to reach it. He wanted to reach it first and yet there was no part of him that believed he would fair any better than Ryan had. There was no part of him that cared.

  "Stop." The command was said simply, but Chris had never heard anything like it. Cal's voice was suddenly reverberating from everywhere at once, sounding as if it had been spoken over a sound system worthy of a heavy metal concert. Chris stopped, his hands going to his ears, as did the others who had been rushing in towards the creature.

  "Everyone stay back." Cal was walking from the opposite side of the camp with Triht at his side. The boy looked mildly confused; it was obvious that he had just been wakened and was still struggling to orient himself. Cal was leading him with one hand on his small shoulder.

  "Take my word for it, that isn't a fight any of you wants." Cal's lips moved, but the voice that boomed from all sides and was easily loud enough to be heard by every person in the camp couldn't have possibly been originating from him. And yet it was. His eyes shifted from where the creature fed to scan the camp slowly. Hours seemed to pass disguised within seconds as all eyes remained focused on him in almost palpable anticipation. Chris realized he was sweating profusely and forced himself to breathe. He was waiting, they all were. In only a few short moments Cal had managed to convince each of them that he was somehow in control of the situation. The man pointed toward the thing that was succeeding in ripping Ryan's face from the rest of his skull and turned to the boy beside him.

  "Triht." The boy looked up with sudden clarity as Cal spoke to him. "Kill it. Now."

  The instruction was absurd, and Chris watched in disbelief as Triht only nodded before breaking away from Cal to face the creature. The boy's face distorted into a venomous sneer as he watched the thing feeding. He walked toward it slowly, his movements strangely stiff. Chris found himself recoiling from the site of the boy's eyes as they latched onto the creature with furious intensity. Triht had come within yards of the creature before it took notice of his advancement and raised its head from feeding. It cocked its head as it scrutinized the boy curiously, a strip of flesh dangling loosely from between rowed fangs.

  Triht stopped. Raising one hand towards where the thing crouched, he said a single word with such vehemence he practically spat it.

  "Fire!" His eyes bulged crazily from his gaunt facial features, his hand trembling for only a few moments before the air was split with an ear-piercing howl.

  Chris tore his eyes from the boy and again threw his hands to his ears. He watched in disbelief as he took in the site of the creature. It had erupted into flame, its awkward form writhing and twisting in agony over the body of its freshly killed prey. Its howls were broken by occasional high-pitched squeals, and Chris was reminded of the way a hog might sound when greased and chased.

  "Die!" The boy still stood with his right arm outstretched. The fire around the creature intensified, became brighter -- denser. The beast at first appeared to be jerking its body strangely, until Chris realized that the intense flames enveloping it were somehow holding it in place. It couldn't move, and so it burnt where it stood.

  The thing continued to squeal for a surprisingly long time before finally silencing. All eyes turned to Triht as his hand slowly lowered. The flames around the creature thinned and dissipated, allowing the burnt remains of its flesh to collapse into a mangled and smoldering heap. The muscles in the boy's face relaxed, and he smiled. He looked to Cal, his search for the man's approval written in his expression.

  Cal afforded him only the slightest of nods before pointing to a handful of men in turn.

  "Get the bodies wrapped and out of camp. Bring me anything that belonged to the dead." He turned to Danny. "Did she have any dependents?" He was pointing to the half-eaten corpse of the creature's first victim.

  Danny shook his head. "She didn't have any kids with her. I don't even think she liked kids."

  Cal grunted, satisfied. "Then all in all we were lucky. I've seen one of these once before. They're faster than you would believe, and deadly as predators."

  Chris saw Cal look to him then.

  "You should be careful, friend." He said. "I saw you try to protect the girl, but this thing would've killed you in only a few short milliseconds had you done as you were about to. You would have been no match."

  "I didn't really give it much thought." Chris answered him. "The thing was eating people who didn't deserve to die. I don't think Ryan gave it a lot of thought either, but he wasn't going to simply do nothing while it fed on a woman's body in front of him."

  Cal shook his head in distaste. "Ryan was a fool. You must choose your battles carefully in Nightscape. If you wish to survive, I suggest you learn that lesson quickly."

  Chris watched as the two bodies were rolled in blankets and then dragged into the darkness. Triht had walked to stand over the remains of the creature. As he stood staring down at the pile of flesh and bones, a small flame appeared suddenly in his right hand where it hung at his side. Chris struggled with what he was seeing. The fire had no source, and appeared to have no effect on the boy even though it burned within his palm. Chris wasn't even sure if the boy realized it was there until he brought his hand up and seemingly dropped the flame somehow. It floated down slowly, but erupted instantly upon contact with the remains, consuming them in an instant.

  Are you really going to allow yourself to believe you're seeing this? That this isn't all some insane dream? Chris asked himself. Do you have much choice? If it's a dream you can't wake up from, has it become your reality?

  Sanchez approached Cal with a drawn expression on his weathered features.

  "I thought you should know." He said. "John and Lisa are missing. I've searched camp for them and they are both gone."

  Chris heard him and moved to join the two men. "Lisa told me her and John would be outside camp for awhile before I passed out." He said. "I haven't been that drunk since my college days, but I remember her telling me that they would be off in that direction somewhere." He pointed to where he had last seen them disappearing into the darkness.

  Cal nodded. "They should be fine, then. They're two of our most capable."

  "They can take care of themselves." Danny voiced his agreement with a small grin.

  "One other thing, " Sanchez said, his strong voice dropping to a near whisper, "before Triht killed the creature there was a boy I saw watching it. He is young, and so I know it was only natural for him to be scared of the beast, but he was saying one word over and over while he watched it. He was so scared he could not move, as if he was frozen in place. He kept saying 'Kala' again and again. I do not know what it means, but the boy acted as if he might have known what the beast was. He could not take his eyes off of it, even once it was dead." The big man pointed one ham-sized fist towards a portion of the camp where the men could make out the figure of a boy. He was on his knees, rocking gently and staring at the place where Triht had ignited the final remains of the creature. People moved around him, and it looked as if a woman was attempting to console the boy but was having little effect.

  Chris thought he saw something in Sanchez's eyes then. His gaze had shifted to his boots, and his large shoulders slumped uncharacteristically. The man looked almost guilty.

  "Thank you, Sanchez." Cal's eyes had narrowed, and he stared into the distance as he spoke. "I've seen one of these creatures before. They're from an old children's tale, and they're called 'Kala'. I was told that the word means something like 'imp' in a language I am not familiar with." He turned to Sanchez sharply. "You did the right thing by telling me. There's no reason for guilt. The boy is potentially dangerous – deadly, even. A risk we cannot afford to take. We must protect each other. There's no shame in wariness. The boy knew the creature's name, and it's no common creature."

  Sanchez's jaw tightened, and he nodded. "What will we do with the boy?"

  Chris noticed Danny shifting nervously from foot to foot, his expression having turned grim.

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  "We can't send the boy away." Danny said suddenly, his tone almost pleading. He looked to Cal. "If we send him away he's gonna die."

  Cal held up a hand as if to quiet him. "We have no choice. If the kid knew what the creature's name was then it could have been his." He looked to Sanchez. "Does he have a guardian to claim him? Or a parent?"

  "No, he came into camp about five cycles ago." Sanchez answered." He was alone, and in pretty bad shape. It appears that his left leg has been broken at some point and perhaps healed incorrectly. He walks with a limp."

  Cal didn't hesitate. "Escort him out of the camp quietly. Make sure he understands that, if he is seen coming within the light of the camp, he will be killed. If he follows us he must keep his distance. If he survives ten cycles with no sign of another Kala, he can rejoin the camp. We were lucky this time. From what I know of them, Kala almost always travel in packs. We lost our vigil, and we paid for it. From this point on there will never be a time when there are not at least five alert pairs of eyes watching the camp. Understood?"

  Both of the larger men nodded, echoing their acknowledgment. Chris felt himself slipping, his mind drawing back into itself as he listened. The conversation that had occurred right in front of him seemed somehow distant, the implications of what had been decided vague and less than real. He had slipped into a place where the inconceivable was unstoppable, where he was powerless to predict or control what was becoming his reality. He watched from what seemed another world as Sanchez walked slowly to where the young boy knelt, the kid's fear written clearly across his young face. The boy was still staring toward where the creature had burned to nothing. Triht stood near the few remaining ashes, his attention rapt on the unfolding scene, his eyes seeming to return the frightened boy's gaze. Sanchez spoke to the kneeling child for a few minutes, and finally offered his hand to help him stand. Danny had been right. The boy's left leg supported him strangely whenever he stood. He allowed Sanchez to lift him, and then the man was carrying him towards the edge of the light.

  Chris felt some part of his mind screaming for him to do something, for him to run after Sanchez and stop him, explain that what he was about to do was insanity. He couldn't send a child into the dark. He couldn't tell a boy who looked to be less than ten or twelve years old that he was alone, that he represented some kind of danger that made him an unacceptable risk. What were Cal and the others thinking? How could they exile someone so young from the only people who could protect him?

  Christ. He's helpless. Chris thought. He can't even walk for Christ's sake. How can they blame what just happened on a boy?

  His thoughts were cascading, bits of memory attempting to converge into something he struggled to grasp. Cal asking him if there was anything following him. Lynn telling him about the camping trip she had taken with her father when she was a girl. The sound of fear in her voice as she had described the wolves

  oh Christ the damned wolves, she was so scared of the wolves wasn't she?

  and the sound of her screams as she was killed by what she had known was hunting her, by what she had tried so desperately to convince him was out there looking for her.

  They're blaming the boy for the creature's attack. Chris thought. They're blaming him for the Kala. Would they have blamed Lynn for the wolf? Why? Why? Please tell me this is wrong. God please tell me this can't be right. How could she be responsible for the very thing that killed her? How could a boy be responsible for a creature who's existence, by all rights, shouldn't even be possible?

  He stared silently towards the place where Sanchez had disappeared with the boy for a long time, more than once thinking he heard sounds coming from the darkness in that direction. Each time he would look to see if anyone else might have heard them, and each time his eyes would meet Triht's, who still stood near the creature's ashes watching him. His stare seemed to hold more understanding than Chris would have expected to find there.

  Chris became certain that the noises he heard were real. The boy was crying in the darkness, perhaps pleading with Sanchez to be allowed to return to the light.

  It was nearly an hour before the big man returned to camp, his expression having turned from one of guilt to that of pure haunting.

  He returned alone.

                        

  The man named Chris dreamed funny.

  Triht had been watching him sleep for quite some time as he sat near the fire and practiced. He missed the boy who had been taken away already -- the boy with the bright hazel eyes and lopsided smile. Triht missed him even though he had never spoken to him. He hadn't dared. Cal wouldn't have approved, and Triht was shy, but he had watched the boy often and had picked up his name from listening to the boy talk to himself. Triht understood far more languages than he had ever revealed to anyone, including Cal.

  The boy's name had been Pablo. Triht had studied the boy more so than others he observed in the camp. Pablo had been nearly his same size, and possibly close to his age, and so he had taken special interest in how he acted and spoke. Triht had begun practicing some of the hand gestures he often saw the boy making, as well as some of the expressions he had made. Triht raised his eyebrows and allowed his mouth to gape open slightly before grinning, and then his face quickly returned to its previous lack of expression. He had seen Pablo's face do the same when the boy had been given a gift shortly after wandering into camp; it had seemed a wonderful mixture of surprise and happiness to Triht. He practiced the expression over and over as he sat watching the man named Chris sleep, promising himself that he would try it out the next time Cal gave him candy or a treat of some kind, but knowing that he would never have the guts to actually do it. He was too frightened of the possibility that Cal might not understand what the expression meant, that he might not even be capable of showing such a bright display of happiness. What if he only looked strange? What if it was obvious that the expression was in reality something he had practiced mimicking and Cal began to laugh at him?

  Triht shuddered at the thought and stopped practicing for a few moments. He watched Chris roll over in his sleep, his mouth moving but his eyes never opening. The man tossed and turned constantly, but Triht understood why. Chris dreamed funny. It was a conclusion he had come to quickly after only less than an hour of watching the man sleep. Triht wasn't sure exactly how he knew, but he understood that Chris's dreams were somehow off, somehow unusual. The word funny seemed to describe them best to Triht. Funny dreams could be dangerous. Triht had seen those who dreamed funny dreams die terribly before, but he had also seen them do the unspeakable. And so Chris had piqued his curiosity.

  He turned to check on the fire, his eyes seeing far more than simple flame and light. Patterns danced among the flames, patterns that he could control, patterns only he could see. Triht focused for only a fraction of a second on a particular mesh of strands within the pattern, created a slight rift in the fabric that held the flames in check and allowed a small portion to escape and cross over into reality. The bonfire blazed higher, the heat and fury escaping through the rift as it longed to. Flames snarled ravenously upward, searching – seeking out – more to devour.

  Triht licked his lips. A familiar desire threatened to claim him, a familiar thirst. His eyes soaked in the sight of the escaping predator, soaked in the sight of the orange yellow flames, and he allowed the rift to stay open longer than he had planned at first. The meshes within the patterns that danced before him drew him in. He focused – reached – out to them and altered them to make them his. A small touch here, a complicated weave there; the flames were his, and they began to condense and stretch to form shapes and constructs that would have been visible to anyone watching. Pillars and spheres of pure fire and heat took shape and intertwined with one another within the blaze as they rose into the blackness. The bonfire had shot to nearly twice its earlier height in mere seconds, and yet still he allowed the rift to remain open because it was so beautiful. It was so insanely beautiful.

  Something at the back of his mind tugged at him, the voice of his own reason, but it seemed foreign and distant. He fought to understand it, fought to remember why it was important to hear it. And then he remembered, and he struggled against the thirst that longed so desperately to be quenched. Triht focused on the rift he had created between realities and closed it gently, wistfully. The fabric was healed, and the fire died down instantly to its previous strength. He shifted his concentration to the source of the flames -- probed into the depths of the fire to be certain that everything remained as he had worked to set it when the fire was first built. The pile of wood and flammable materials that were the supposed fuel for the bonfire's flames remained nearly untouched within it. He had created a series of tiny, controlled rifts above the materials that were the actual source. The flames were his, and would continue to escape into the darkness until he healed the minute tears in the fabrics between plains at their base.

  He licked his lips absently as he checked and rechecked his work before looking nervously to make sure Cal's eyes remained closed in sleep. He had created a rift much larger than Cal would have approved of -- had allowed it to remain open far too long -- but the man was asleep. He had seen nothing.

  Triht wiped a fine sheen of sweat from his forehead. He turned back to again observe Chris sleeping, his back to the fire where he sat cross-legged to keep the thirst at bay for a short while. The thirst was always there, but at times he was able to drown it out. At times he was able to rest it in the darker recesses of his thoughts, allow it to slumber. Chris's eyelids rippled ever so slightly in the firelight, his eyes moving behind them as he dreamed, and Triht watched them with growing fascination.

  The strange man dreamed so very funny.

                        

  A large hand gripped his shoulder strongly and shook him, a voice breaking sharply through layers of sleep.

  "Wake up!" The urgency in Danny's voice was uncharacteristic, and Chris was awake nearly instantly. "Goddamnit, wake up! We have to leave. You've got to help me. Help me make sure we've got all the children with us."

  "Ok." Chris was nodding before the instructions even fully made sense to him. He sat up. "Ok, I'm on it."

  Danny grabbed Chris's shoulder again and brought his face to within inches of the other man's. "Damnit, are you sure you're awake? You've got to listen to me. We've got three dead bodies in less than ten minutes, and whatever the hell killed 'em hasn't gone anywhere. It's still out there. We've got to move - we're sittin' ducks."

  Chris absorbed what he was being told numbly as he took in the surrounding chaos. The entire camp appeared to be descending into a state of panic around him as he watched. There were screams and yells as people scrambled to gather their belongings, some dragging children by their hands behind them as they moved toward the side of the camp where everyone appeared to be assembling. Chris caught sight of one of the bodies Danny had spoken of, and the site of the bloody, gutted figure splayed on the ground was enough to bring him to his feet.

  "I'm awake." He said to Danny. "What do you need me to do?"

  "We have to make sure none of the kids is left behind." Danny said. "Cal's gonna have Triht douse the fire any second now so we're not such an obvious target. We're loading everybody's shit and all the kids into the trailer. We've got to get moving as fast as we can - somethin's killing people without us even gettin' a good look at it, but I think it's comin' from the air, maybe. Shit. We have to move fast. We can't leave anyone behind."

  Chris scanned the camp quickly in search of any children who weren't with an adult. He picked out a girl he recognized standing alone clutching a small blanket in one hand. It was the little girl he had tried to protect from the Kala. The same girl who had been unable to move as the creature had advanced on her. She stood crying, watching those around her dart in random directions as they collected personal belongings and moved to carry them towards the trailer where they were being loaded. Chris caught sight of Triht from the corner of his eye just before the boy approached the campfire and raised one hand. The fire seemed to implode in upon itself, and the camp was suddenly thrown into pitch black, the only source of light having been extinguished. There were more screams.

  Chris struggled to mentally mark the place where he had last seen the girl, but she hadn't been close and his sense of direction was confused as he collided with an unknown body in the dark. He heard cursing in a language he didn't understand, and then everything else was drowned out as Cal's voice reverberated through his skull.

  "Follow the light and stay as close together as you can." Cal's voice was again somehow being amplified throughout the camp, this time even louder than Chris could remember it having been before. Chris brought his hands up to cover his ears as he watched a large flame appear in the darkness - the figure of a man illuminated beneath it. It was Cal. "Follow me and move quickly. Keep your weapons at the ready. Stay close together and remain as quiet as possible." He stated the instructions in a mild tone, as if calmly following a procedure he had carried out more than once. The single flame floated above him and acted as a beacon. Chris was pushed and shoved from all sides as he fought against the tide of bodies moving to congregate near it. He made his way toward the general point where he thought he had last seen the girl with set determination. More than once he was forced to shove himself away from a well-intentioned person who grabbed him and attempted to drag him by the arm in the opposite direction, all the while shouting at him something he was sure amounted to the fact he was going the wrong way.

  The wave of moving flesh finally cleared him and he walked in a half-stoop, his arms flailing randomly around him in hopes of finding the girl where she stood. His own breathing had never seemed so loud to him. He looked back toward Cal and his heartbeat sped; the flame was moving away, the sound of trailer wheels creaking in a grinding roll slowly fading. The camp was on the move. Several smaller points of light materialized as torches were lit around the moving trailer, but Cal's light remained above them all, its flames too large and intense to have been provided by a torch. Chris thought the flame looked like more of Triht's work.

  He moved erratically, his hands reaching into the darkness, but the more ground he covered the more obvious it became that he would be unable to find the girl in that manner. If she was even still out there. He struggled to keep his breathing down, his ears straining to hear anything other than the sounds of those fast departing with Cal. The voice that suddenly cut the air was perhaps one of the most welcome noises he had ever heard.

  "Chris? Chris, you out there, man? Damnit to hell, I need some help." Danny's yells were strangely hoarse. "Chris! Goddamnit, where are you, man?"

  "I'm right here." Chris moved quickly toward the point of the other man's voice. A flashlight beam suddenly appeared mere yards in front of him, and he shielded his eyes as it was shone directly toward his face before being directed toward the ground at his feet.

  "Ah, I see you." Danny said. "My bad, didn't mean to get you in the eyes. Didn't really think you'd still be here."

  In the glow from the flashlight Danny held Chris was able to see why the man's voice had sounded strained. He was practically being strangled -- a young boy riding behind him piggy-back style, his hands clasped tightly around Danny's neck. Danny held another child in his left arm, and two more stood beside him clutching either leg. One of them was the little girl Chris had been unable to find.

  "Pretty sure this is all of 'em." Danny said. "Can't carry them all, though. Only have so many hands."

  Chris grinned. "Christ. Why didn't you turn that light on a little sooner and I would've been a little faster?"

  Danny nodded his head toward the boy clutching his left leg. "The kid here was holding it and accidentally flipped it off. I think this one on my back's about to fuckin' choke me to death. I knew there'd be some stragglers, though, 'cause some of 'em who just died were guardians."

  A scream tore threw the silence around the two men and Danny's expression turned grim. "Can you carry the girl and the light?" He asked.

  Chris took the flashlight from him and reached down to gently coax the girl from her death grip on Danny's leg to lift her.

  "Ready?" He asked.

  "Let's go." Danny said as he scooped up the fourth child from the ground to fill his last remaining arm. "We've got to catch up quick. Something's hunting us and anyone who's not with the group is easy meat."

  That's encouraging to hear. Chris thought. Can I get a cheer for all the poor souls out there marked "Easy Meat"? God rest them, our prayers are with them.

  "Don't really appreciate being called 'easy'." Chris managed to quip as their pace reached a slow jog.

  Danny grunted, and Chris again marveled at the fact that the man hadn't yet been strangled by the hold being maintained around his neck. They followed the lights from the moving camp and closed in on the procession slowly. A column of bodies had been formed behind the flatbed trailer upon the front rail of which Cal was perched. Triht sat beside him. Six men pulled the trailer's harnesses, and the back end had been loaded down with possessions and more than a dozen children. The group was keeping pace at a fast walk, those on the outside of the formation brandishing a variety of weapons ranging from various types of clubs and knives to the occasional shotgun or sharpened hatchet. Chris followed Danny as he made his way through to the trailer, finally breaking from his jog to load the children he carried in with the others who huddled wide-eyed within the makeshift wagon. The big man turned to relieve Chris of the girl he held, but Chris shook his head.

  "Thanks, but I'll carry her." He said through heavy breaths. He eyed the children in the trailer. "They look pretty cramped already."

  Danny nodded his understanding.

  "You must've run often before you ended up here." Chris said. "Every time I try to keep up with you I feel like I've just run a marathon while you barely work up a sweat. Nice way to make an old man feel even older."

  Danny grinned and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off before he had started.

  "Danny used to play football -- was a great player." Cal spoke from where he sat at the front of the trailer, his eyes never shifting from their watch on the mass of frightened faces trailing behind it by torchlight. "He's strong, and he's fast because he believes in himself and always had. It was ingrained in him by his parents. Father, mostly. Even now, his potential is greater than he knows."

  If Danny's chest could puff out any farther, it did. Even in the darkness, his face reddened visibly, and the look he gave Cal was one of complete adoration.

  Chris watched Cal for a few moments, searching for something but unsure of exactly what. Watching him was often like watching a lifeless mannequin that had somehow become animated. His eyes were always strangely concentrated but unrevealing, his manner hinting at well hidden secrets.

  What drives a man like Cal? Chris thought. Why is he practically herding a group of people so large when it seems he's the type who wouldn't put his ass on the line for anyone? What does he get out of this? Does he genuinely care about these people, or is there something else behind his interest in them?

  A scream again split the air from somewhere near the back of the procession, followed by shouts and still more screams from those who had been walking near where the first originated. One of the shrieks faded oddly, the sound seeming to rise farther and farther into the blackness above the procession until it cut off abruptly.

  "Faster!" Cal turned to shout at the men pulling the trailer. "As fast as you can! Let's move."

  He leapt down from the trailer and made his way back through the column towards where the shouting had taken on a more urgent tone, the flame above his head extinguishing as Triht made no move to abandon where he sat at the front of the trailer to follow him.

  "What happened?" Chris heard Cal bark the question as he and Danny followed, muscling their way through men and women who's faces spoke of near panic as their pace quickened behind the trailer. Chris gripped the girl in his arms close - she put her head down against his chest as if wishing to see nothing more.

  Multiple people attempted to answer Cal at the same time. As he and Danny reached the place near where the first scream had come, Chris could see some of the reason for the panic in their voices. Nearly every person within a ten foot radius had drops and streaks of blood spotting their clothes, faces, and hair. The blood was fresh, glistening in the light of the torches.

  "It came from the air!" The young man's voice was incredibly shrill, each word quavering strangely as he uttered it due to the fact that his teeth chattered as he spoke. His eyes were wide with something bordering on hysteria as he reached out and grabbed one sleeve of the jacket Cal wore. "It came from the air and snatched him right from the middle of us, right from between us before we even knew it was there." Spittle flew from his mouth. He had stopped walking and those behind him nearly tripped over him as he clung to Cal. Chris guessed him to be in his late teens, his clothes torn and ragged but looking as if they had been purchased solely from name brand vendors at one time. Blood matted a patch of his hair, and large portions of his shirt were damp with the red liquid, but he looked uninjured. A flap of something lay loosely upon one of his shoulders, and Chris nearly gagged with the realization that it was a patch of human skin laying inside-up, small portions of red flesh still attached to it in places. It looked as if it had somehow come to simply fall where it rested.

  Cal swatted the kid's grip away from him forcefully and snarled. "Get a grip, maggot. Keep walking while you speak. No one here will carry or drag you."

  The young man fell forward and struggled awkwardly to regain his footing, his movements disorganized and randomly bizarre. It was as if he had suddenly been thrown into a state between shock and near madness. Cal didn't slow, turning away from him to continue on with the forward-pressing column. Chris attempted to stop and grab the kid's hand to help him to his feet, but it flailed spasmodically. The young man slipped and collapsed to the ground, clutching both hands to his chest, a large wet stain spreading quickly over his pants at his pelvis. He was wetting himself. He screamed.

  "I don't want to diiiieeee!" They were his last intelligible words before his high-pitched shrieking cracked and tapered into whimpering. He curled into a fetal position, his legs kicking in the manner of a child caught in the throws of a tantrum. Chris was knocked to his knees as those passing dodged to either side to keep from tripping over the man. The girl he held whimpered, her small form shuddering. He heard Danny's voice from somewhere ahead of him shouting for him to leave the man where he lay, and he struggled quickly back to his feet, affording the young man only one last look before again joining those around him in their quickening flight. Those with torches held them low for shielding as their flames threatened to sputter out with the speed; they were at nearly a full run, the trailer at the front of the line having been sped by dozens of those behind it as they took up places around its back end and pushed.

  "Don't slow!" Cal's voice was there again, as if being amplified directly into the skulls of each individual within the column. "Everyone keep moving and keep the lights burning ! Above all else keep the lights burning!"

  Cal had scarcely finished speaking before there was another ear-piercing scream from only a few yards ahead and to the right of Chris in the procession. He caught sight of a pair of legs kicking frantically as a woman was snatched into the air with incredible speed, her screams rising with her into the darkness. Those who had been near her as she was taken stopped moving to look skyward in search of the thing which had snatched her away, creating a split in the procession's movement.

  Cal began to yell, and many were forced to throw their hands to their ears as protection against the sound. "Do not stop! Move!"

  The screaming in the air above them suddenly ceased, and less than a fraction of a second later those who had come to a standstill to scream their horror or search the darkness in terror were showered in a down-pouring of blood. Chris was far enough behind to be missed, but he watched as quarter-sized spots and thick streaks of blood suddenly materialized on Cal and Danny's clothes while they struggled to coax those who had halted their forward progress into movement.

  More than a few torches were inadvertently allowed to extinguish in the ensuing confusion. Darkness threatened to  overtake those who remained in the lagging portion of the column - Chris worked to keep those around him moving, prodding any who had frozen in near pretrification to begin running again. He grabbed the hand of a woman who had come to a complete stop; she stood staring upwards with both hands held above her eyes as if for shielding. She was screaming, but was fast going hoarse. The horror on her blood-splattered face had nearly brought her eyeballs from their sockets, her skin a deathly pale.

  "Please, we have to keep moving!" Chris shouted to her, but was certain she couldn't hear him above her own screams and the screams of those around them. He pulled her with him as he searched for Cal and Danny in the thickening darkness, eventually letting her go as she began moving again of her own accord . He followed the intermittent sound of the two men's yells, and finally found himself stumbling into Danny's large frame.

  "Chris? Is that you, man?" Danny shouted the question.

  "Yeah, it's me." The panic around them was nearly deafening. "What happened? I saw someone snatched up into the air, but I couldn't see what took them. Did you see what it was?"

  "Somethin' big." Danny said. "Didn't get a real good look at it, but it's a big sonofabitch."

  Cal joined them, a torch in either hand. "Here, take one of these and hold on to them." He said through heavy breaths. He handed a torch to both men in turn. "Too many are letting their lights go out. The odds are high that whatever is out there can see in the dark, but we can't. We must keep the lights burning or we'll scatter."

  There was a flash of light from the direction of the other half of the procession. The trailer at its head was illuminated for a moment and as Chris turned in surprise he caught sight of a large flame growing in the air above the heads of those walking with it. Chris was surprised at how large the gap had become between the forward half of the column and those lagging behind, but he was still able to make out the figure of a boy he knew to be Triht from where he stood. The boy was standing on the trailer's forward rail, facing back over those following the trailer. His attention appeared to be fully concentrated on the suspended flame, both arms outstretched from his body towards it as if he was somehow conjuring the fire from nothing. The light given off by the growing flame was immense.

  "Holy shit." Danny said suddenly, and Chris at first thought he was referring to the impossibility of the flame hovering in midair. "Holy fuckin' shit." Danny pointed into the air farther up and above the flame. Chris raised his eyes and understood what held his attention. A massive form circled slowly in the darkness above the procession, its exact shape and size difficult to make out but Chris would have guessed it to be at least the size of a school bus. The thing had a tail that trailed perhaps another five or six yard's length behind it as parts of it passed through the bubble of illumination cast by Triht's flame.

  Holy god. Chris thought. What am I seeing? What am I seeing?.

  "It's a wyrm of some kind." Cal spoke softly then, almost as if admiring what he saw -- his eyes locked on the same expanse of skyward darkness. "I have not seen one in quite some time. It's beautiful."

  Something shot down towards the camp with exquisite speed, avoiding the flame and plunging straight into the mass of bodies beneath it. The thing looked to be a type of extension, its tentacle-like structure stemming from the creature above. There were screams, and a body was snatched into the air. The victim's upper body was completely wrapped in the aberration, their head and legs being all that remained visible from between coils of the tentacle's length.

  And then the flame moved. Chris heard Triht's wordless yell above all others, heard it as it ripped from the boy's mouth at the fullest extent his small lungs would allow. The flame became a fireball, suddenly rocketing upwards from where it had burned a mere handful of yards above the heads of those in and directly behind the trailer. It rose quickly at an angle that brought it into a head-on collision with the predator above. Flames spread at the point of collision and the beast roared as it was engulfed in searing pain, the entire length of its body aflame within only seconds. The tentacle released the body it had snatched, whipping back and forth with the creature's agony, pummeling those who were unlucky enough to be beneath it as it twisted and writhed near the ground. The procession lost any semblance of order as people scrambled to get away from the flailing limb. The creature's roar became shrill with pain. The tentacle was retracted shortly before the thing suddenly darted off into the distant pitch black sky, its flaming form shrinking into the distance along with its agonized cries.

  The creature left the purest of chaos in its wake, and Cal began to yell unnaturally amplified orders almost immediately as he made his way back towards Triht and the lead section of the fast-dissipating column.

  "Everyone stay together!" There was frustration in Cal's voice as the procession had become almost completely dispersed. "There could be more than one! Everyone stay close and keep moving."

  Chris held the now crying girl in his arms tight and took up a slow run behind Cal to catch up to the trailer. He heard Danny's yells fading behind him as the big man struggled to try and bring those lagging behind back together around the few remaining lights. Flashlights and makeshift lamps were nearly all that remained bright in the confusion.

  "Shhh." Chris soothed the girl. "It's ok. It's going to be ok. Shhh."

  It was quite some time before the lights that had scattered began to flock together once more and the procession was finally unified under Cal's barked orders. Their pace didn't slow for an even longer period, but the fear that the creature which had hunted them hadn't been alone slowly ebbed. Muffled speech, the sound of the trailer's wheels creaking on their axis, and the occasional sound of children’s voices became the procession's mantra as they made their way through an ocean of shadows.

  Chris never saw the young man who had fallen again among the faces of those that walked.