Chapter 28

He knocked several times with his fist and when Sanchez could get no response from his master he decided to open it and cautiously peer inside. It was dark but he could see Orion lying in his bed, apparently asleep. He opened the door wider and walked into the room and went over to the sleeping body.

Sanchez had never even dared wake Orion – everyone was in fear of what might become of them if they did.

“My Lord,” he whispered in hopes of rousing Orion without upsetting him. He needed confirmation as to when to send out the army. They were becoming impatient. And when Dreamkillers become impatient, they become dangerous to those around them – no matter who they may be.

“Sir,” he called when he could get no response and he only heard his master breathing heavily. He’s in a sleep-induced coma, he thought. There would be no rousing him, he knew, because he had known his master to enter these comas several times in the past and no one but Orion himself awoke him.

That would mean that he, Sanchez, was now temporarily in charge over the Dreamkillers.

He nodded to himself as he took one last look at his sleeping master and then turned and exited the room to go in search of Klarkson to tell him to ship out his four hundred minions.

Sanchez would tell him to send them out just beyond the forest to whatever lay beyond.

* * *

It was the abrupt bump that woke Vince from a sleep he had been hoping wouldn’t find him. A general needs to always be alert no matter the circumstances. He opened his eyes and saw that the boat had made a crude dock as it brushed up against the beach. He looked around and was not surprised to see that the beach was deserted.

Their battle was in the meadow; not the beach.

“Should I holler ‘land ho!’?” asked Chris as she stepped over the side of the boat and felt her feet sink a little into the sand.

“You could,” replied Karl behind a smile. “But I think those words would be redundant.” When he put his feet onto the beach he was surprised at how far his feet sunk into the sand.

Chris looked at him with a nod as she understood his concern. “Uh, I think our journey will be difficult,” she called out as she looked back at Vince.

Vince went to the edge of the boat and looked down at the sand. He saw how deep Chris and Karl’s feet sank and then he glanced back at the army. “We take off our shoes and boots – anything that’s on our feet to trap in the sand. That sand’ll slow us if it weighs us down,” he called and began taking off his shoes, setting them down next to him.

While the others were doing as suggested, Karl helped Chris with her shoes – it was difficult to bring her feet up out of the sand. Once her shoes were off and lying on the sand, she helped Karl with his boots, which were harder to pry off than sneakers.

“Mother,” said Vince as he looked down at the sitting woman and she looked back up at her son. “We’re going to need some kind of armor and weapons. You saw what is to come; can you at least help us get those things?” He tried his damnedest to be civil to her. Although he was forty years old, there was no way he would ever forget that she had struck him – it made him feel like he was five years old.

Tracy stood up and looked past her son at the line of green grass several miles from where they stood. It would take them a short time to cross that distance. She sighed and looked back at Vince.

“I will meet you just beyond the line of grass over there,” she pointed. “When you get there I will have enough armor and weapons for everyone. But I warn you: in that short span of time, I will not guarantee the effectiveness of the weapons.”

Vince wanted to know and he brought his hand up to her shoulder and was disappointed to find that his hand went through her, touching nothing but the humid air.

Tracy smiled. “I’m going on a mission, Vincent. I’m going to require my spirit-self now.”

“I’m sorry, I just…”

“No,” she said as she shook her head. “There’s nothing you should be sorry about.” Tracy smiled and looked out at the greenery and knew that the large meadow lay just beyond the line. There was nothing she could really do to help them survive; that was not their fate and she knew it. “I’ll see you soon, Vincent. I love you.”

“Thank you,” he said just before he watched his mother vanish from his eyes.

* * *

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The thunderous cacophony of pounding feet – perhaps a hundred, maybe more – frightened Agnes to consciousness, a consciousness she had not realized she had abandoned. She raised her head and turned in the direction of the footfalls of an approaching army. Her first assumption was that Vincent had arrived with his army a little earlier than planned, but when she heard the nonhuman war cries, she knew these were not humans approaching, rather Dreamkillers.

Agnes knew, just as well as any other person that she had to hide from the approaching onslaught. She turned and found a thick brush that looked like it had fallen from the tree it was resting under and so she crawled over to it and buried her body as best she could.

And then she looked behind the tree that she had just come from and was somewhat satisfied that Mykella’s sleeping body was hidden beneath a thin shroud of leaves. All Agnes could do was pray that the bastards don’t stop and look down at that exact spot. Otherwise the war is lost.

She shoved her face down into the ground and closed her eyes as tight as they could when she saw the first row emerge in the distance. All she could do was to scold herself for being a coward; wasn’t it eighteen years ago that she had snuck into Orion’s castle and rescued a hundred prisoners, including Mykella Brown?

If only she could find that strength again at sixty years of age. But now she will have to rely on Mykella to save her instead of the other way around.

* * *

Vincent sat down on a large rock a third of the way across the beach. He was winded already; the sinking sand was just as troublesome for him as it was for the rest of his friends. They carried their shoes and boots across the beach. He looked up from his tired thoughts and saw that he was no longer leading the men across the beach. Some young man whom he had never talked to was several yards ahead of everyone else – he was almost to the first sprouts of grass.

May God have mercy on us, Vince thought as he looked around at the young men struggling to make their way across the beach.

“What’re you thinking about?” asked Chris and Vince noticed that she had backtracked just to ask him this question.

He looked hard into her face and just realized the lines next to her eyes. He became aware suddenly of the creases across his own lips as he tried to smile. They were beginning to feel the age that had dictated for forty years now. There was no use denying it. Until now, he had felt just like that young man who had helped Mykella when she was still inside her mother.

And now, everything was different. He knew mortality.

He was going to die.

As he stared at her he let his mind journey back to the past and he was wondering why he had broken off their relationship. He tried to remember but all he could recall was that he was breaking up with her in his dorm room. It was a hot afternoon – he had the small desk fan at full power. Was there really a reason he broke up with her, or was it just immaturity?

He was going to die.

He closed his eyes and several tears fell down his cheeks and when he opened them again, he took Chris’ hands in his and held them gently.

From several yards to the left Karl had stopped and was watching them.

“Christene,” he began and could feel the simplest tremor in her hands.

Oh God, she thought. This cannot be happening to me – I’m too old for this shit.

“I was childish when I broke up with you so long ago,” he said and then stood up, feeling his feet burn with the warming sand.

Here it comes, she tried to look away.

“Marry me, Christene – when this is over. Live with me for the rest of my life.” This was something he had never even thought about, or even remotely considered, because she was a good friend and he didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize that friendship.

Chris was a woman who wrote a speech for every occasion so she just looked into his face for a moment and then gave him a sympathetic grin. “You’re desperate, Vince. You’re afraid of dying alone.”

“No,” he lied to himself. “I should have asked you twenty years ago. Marry me,” he repeated and didn’t see Karl struggling in the sand as he tried to run over to them.

And when he did catch up to them, Karl lifted his fist and hit Vince square in the right eye as an abrupt rage overcame him.

Vince, stunned, fell onto his back and touched his eye with his hand and felt the blood – hot blood. “What the hell was that for?” He didn’t care that almost everyone had stopped their trek to the grass to see what was going on. “What’d’ya do that for?”

Chris didn’t wait for Karl to reply as she moved in between the two men. “Vince,” she tried to find words to explain.

“They’re married already.”

Vince turned in the direction of the voice and his eyes fell upon a man not much younger than himself. “What the hell are you talking about?” Vince pulled himself back up to his feet – with no help from Chris or Karl.

“They are a married couple,” the man said again and this time Vince went over to him with a hatred he had not felt in a very long time simmering inside his body.

“How would you know?” Vince fought for control of his anger (he wanted to grab the man by his shoulders and shake him until his head fell off).

“I married them myself last night while you slept in a corner of the boat. They came up to me, knowing that I am – or at least, was – a minister of God, and asked if I would perform that simple task.”

Vince stared at the once-minister with hatred and then even that hatred died down soon and then he felt completely drained. Drained in both mind and spirit. Everything was gone. Mykella had really left him when she was born twenty years ago, Samantha died only two days ago, and now Chris is gone from him forever.

But Chris was right and he knew it. When he realized just how old they had become in such a short time, he became afraid of dying alone. He could deal with the death part – he just didn’t want to go through it alone. That was his one fear, his dread – being totally alone. He didn’t know why, but he felt like his mother knew exactly how he felt.

Vince couldn’t make himself turn to look at Chris or Karl – even to congratulate them. Instead he gave the minister one last look and then gave up. “Fine,” he said and then, “Listen up fellas,” he called out to all that could hear. “We better hustle – this war is almost over and I don’t know about you guys, but I want to know that I can sleep peacefully. Victory is ours! Move!”