Chapter 8.1: Lamentations of the Damned

Dead Boy’s trying his hardest to keep his eyes glued on the road at his feet, but it’s not working. Every ten or twenty steps, a new terrifying sound causes him to jerk his head up by instinct and stare in horror at the congregation gathering all around them.

But not this time. Hell no. Just don’t look, man—it’s not so hard. Eyes on the ground. Eyes on the ground…

They’d been walking for almost two hours, more or less in a straight line down mostly residential roads. They’d come across plenty of Frozen along the way, which the baseball bat guys always woke with a solid blow to the head. But they’d never stuck around to see the wraiths finally escape, were always long moved on by then.

But now, new wraiths have begun slithering out of alleyways to meet them, gathering around to escort the walking troop returning from their hunt. Wraiths, and much, much worse.

Don’t think about it, Dead Boy thinks, eyes riveted on the scuffed toes of his boots. Must be getting close by now, I can feel it! Just a little longer…

He still has no idea where their destination is—Jamar hasn’t spoken another word, and Dead Boy’s given up trying to provoke him. But judging by how they’d started off walking directly away from Lake Merced and haven’t really changed direction yet, he guesses they must be heading roughly due east. Which means … toward San Bruno, or just north of there?

A hollow scraping noise rattles just behind Dead Boy’s left ear—he jumps half out of his skin, and immediately cracks his scalp on something hard above him. He glares all around with wide eyes, desperately wishing he had his axe, more for something to hold onto than to fight with.

Dozens of ice wraiths are crowding around him and Jamar, so many that he can no longer see the buildings to their left or even Katana on the other side of the street. Each wraith is as long as a car, vaguely shaped like a monstrous frozen larva with an almost-human face and long tentacles that flail about like hair whipping in the wind. Somehow, the tentacles do not come close to Jamar and Dead Boy, forming a kind of writhing aura about them.

Walking among the wraiths on long, spidery limbs ending in massive blue pincers are larger ice monsters that look like a cross between grasshoppers and scorpions. Through a gap in the mess of writhing tentacles, Dead Boy finds himself staring directly into one of these insectile beasts’ massive, black multi-faceted eyes, and is immediately caught in a trance as he sees himself reflected back. The creature opens its foot-long mandibles wide to screech pure hatred at Dead Boy, then ducks its head as a much larger body writhes into view.

A few feet above the marching host, three enormous purple snakelike forms undulate and slither through the air. Each one’s as thick around as a subway car, but Dead Boy has no way of discerning how long they are for there’s no head or tail-end in sight, only never-ending squiriming torsos. In fact, Dead Boy’s not even sure if it might not be the body of just one truly massive creature that’s coiled back on itself.

It was this flying worm thing that Dead Boy’d smashed his head on as it undulated a little too close for comfort. He rubs a hand through his short hair (no fresh blood, lucky), hunches his shoulders and diverts his gaze again, trying his best to keep a small profile as he concentrates on his feet again. One step at a time…

After twenty more minutes of this continuing terror, the monsters suddenly hang back to let Dead Boy and his human captors quietly emerge from the residential streets onto a four-lane highway that winds up a low mountain. As they begin their ascent, Dead Boy turns to see the ring of creatures disappear into the fog. The writhing sky-snake is the last to disappear from view.

A few minutes later, the hounds start barking like mad and scamper off up the side of the hill. Jamar, Katana and the others follow, leaving the paved road to hike directly up the mountain. It’s not steep enough to be San Bruno, Dead Boy realizes. Maybe McLaren Park?

The mountain isn’t very high, either. The fog’s thinning a bit, but they never clear the misty ceiling. A deep red light emanates from the setting sun above, painting the entire mountainside with fire.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

As they climb into the unearthly crimson glow, the hounds begin to howl. Their cries reverberate up the mountain and echo back down to the hikers, like deep and mournful wails of the lost.

Then, from out of nowhere, a new voice joins the soulful moaning. A female singing voice, ominous and low. It rises and falls, harmonizing with the howls, singing the sun to sleep with an eerie lullaby, a lamentation of the damned.

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Welcome to the rest of my pitiful life!

Garden plops down on a rickety cot, which groans and creaks in objection to her meager weight. She glares around at her new quarters with visible disdain. My prison cell.

“I know, I know, it’s not much. But it’s safe,” Jazzman says with a sad smile. “You’ll be well cared for down here,”

“I would have been cared for just fine in Del’s friend’s community,” she mutters bitterly, though she knows it’s a useless argument and most likely untrue. Even if I made it that far, it’s probably not safe there either, what with these new attacks and all, yeah yeah yeah, she thinks along with her father’s insistent response. She’d been through this a dozen times with him already.

After her strange reunion with her dad in the warehouse, he’d led them to a trapdoor hidden under a pile of debris. (“Pull this rock here, and the whole junkheap lifts up along with it, see?” Jazzman had explained so proudly to them.) The hatch held a ladder that led down to an empty, unfinished basement, at the back of which was another hidden door: this time, a whole section of the wall slid away on well-hidden tracks to reveal a rough-cut tunnel leading into the bowels of the earth. Soda had departed back into the fog as soon as he’d been shown how the secret entrances work, with a promise to check in on her in a few days.

“I dug this myself,” Jazzman had explained as he and his daughter made the trek down a long, straight tunnel. In the dim illumination of his flashlight, the tunnel had felt claustrophobically narrow. “We have a bunch of hideouts and secret passageways like this down here in the Crypts. Can never be too careful, right?”

Halfway down the tunnel, he’d pulled aside a dirty curtain hung across a gap in the wall to reveal a small, rough-cut room carved out of the damp earth. It was furnished with nothing but the cot, a kerosene lantern, and a filthy bucket for a toilet.

You can’t be serious.

“This might as well be a jail cell!” Garden wails, now completely taken aback. She slumps against the wall, but pulls away from the cold, wet dirt with a sneer.

“I’ll bring along some more furnishings soon, I promise,” Jazzman says, his face flushing a deep amber in the orange kerosene light. “And it’s only for a few days. Once your brother gets back, I’ll go get Mom and we can all head out together. Del knows his way through the fog now, he can get us there safely.”

Garden sits up. “Yeah? Where to?”

Jazzman shrugs. “Maybe one of the tech kingdoms? You always wanted to live in the mountains.”

“What about Carlita?” Garden asks in a quieter voice.

“I don’t know. But we’ll think of something, yeah?”

Yeah, right. Garden knows that’s not really in the cards, isn’t even sure why she’d said it.

“Maybe we can even bring along your friend Soda,” Jazzman adds with a wink. “Seems like a nice boy.”

“Dad!”

Jazzman leaves after explaining that the other end of the tunnel leads to a false panel in the back of a Montgomery Crypts shop — the proprietor, Miss Espresso, could be trusted if Garden needs anything. Garden stands outside her new quarters watching the bobbing white circle of Jazzman’s flashlight grow smaller and smaller before it finally disappears around a corner, leaving her completely and utterly alone.

She sits on the cot, more gingerly this time (no use breaking her bed), and stares at the lantern’s flickering light. Wavy heat fumes radiate upward toward a small metal vent installed in the ceiling, from which a slight breeze blows. She suspiciously lets her mind drift toward the little hole, but is soon assured there’s not a single trace of mist in the cool air issuing into her cell. Maybe I can actually escape the fog dreams down here, she thinks ironically.

She realizes with anger that if it’s true — if she really is safe from the influence of the fog down in this tunnel — that this might actually be the safest place for her to stay. Like, permanently. She can’t endanger the rest of the community if the fog can’t reach her, right? Besides, how could she possibly make it all the way to the mountains with her family anyway? Even the short trip here was nearly impossible with the fog constantly tugging at her mind.

She opens her bag and pulls out the little wooden bird, fingering the splintered edge of its broken leg. She feels a flood of empathy for the small, dead thing.

I’m the broken bird now. I’ll never fly again.

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