The sun was setting as John laid on the grass, his head full of questions. He had found the pilgrims shrine as Preacher had said, though how anyone could use it as such was beyond him. He turned his head, grass brushed against his ear and dirt scratched at his cheek, the path that forked from the main road lead into a forested area. The road itself was cragged and uneven, he wasn’t surprised that there were no abandoned cars on this stretch. The left side of the road was a rocky outcrop, near vertical in most places, and the base and top were sparse with trees. The right side of the road was heavily wooded, and he could make out the edge of another valley that was filled by trees before rising into a peak just above the tree line. He could hear water rushing in the stillness of the setting sun. A bath would be nice, he thought.
He pushed himself off the ground with a sigh, his canvas bag was nowhere to be found. He crept up to the doorway of the temple and peered inside. The smell was intense and burned his eyes, though he suspected that it was more from the acid than the nausea inducing rot that lingered in the air. It was pitch black inside, his torch had either long since burned out or had been eaten by the corrosive liquid. John gave his eyes a moment to adjust and scanned the darkness. He could make out the shape of the sac in the middle of the room and the vague outline of the arch on the far wall. John couldn’t afford to lose the supplies in his pack. He recalled taking the skin of water out of his canvas bag to dilute the acid on his hand, the three drops now a blistered deep red color. He would need to put honey and a bandage over that before moving forward, he noted.
He collected a leg from a nearby chair and wrapped a torn banner from the wall. It was a smooth purple material, but John figured it would all burn the same. He reached into his hip satchel which still hung comfortably underneath his jacket. He felt a slickness that covered most of the items he moved aside in the bag. His fear was realized when he produced a cracked and leaking flask from the depths of his satchel. The flask was empty, but John hoped there was still oil that could be used. To his disappointment, there wasn’t. He unwrapped the smooth cloth from the table leg and took out the various supplies from the satchel, wiping each as clean as he could before rubbing down the inside of the now empty leather and cloth bag. He managed to get enough that he was confident in the cloth's ability to catch fire but was concerned that the same was true about the bag itself.
The flint was slick, which made it hard to get a decent spark from the rock. After a number of strikes and a slight chip at the edge of his blade he managed to catch the cloth. He placed the fire-starting tool into a pocket on the opposite side of his satchel, better safe than sorry. The idea of catching on fire crept into his mind but he quickly shook his thoughts as the sun set behind the mountains in the distance. He entered the room and investigated the front of the altar and the ledge behind it. Most of the wooden bowls were more plate shaped than rounded and the food had suffered a far worse fate. Though the arch had been partially eaten at the curve, that did bring a smile to John's face. The smile quickly faded as he located his canvas sac, or rather what was left of it. Nothing more than a few scraps of cloth and what used to be edible food and a puddle was what he assumed was left of his water skin.
He left the altar and his ruined supplies behind and began down the jagged path in the direction Preacher had given him. It was getting dark, but John pushed forward. He needed to find a safe place to camp for the night, preferably as far away from the temple and the various chittering creatures he had heard on the road. No doubt they could cover more ground than he could and the trees on either side of the road clearly gave them an advantage. He knew the light from his torch would draw unwanted attention but couldn’t risk tripping over the loose rock and into the edge of the valley that had slowly replaced the trees on his right as he ascended the road. The path narrowed even more ahead, and sections of the road had collapsed into the valley below. John kicked a rock over the edge as he passed, waiting for the clatter of the impact. He kicked a bigger rock over the edge after a few moments without hearing the impact of the first. The rock bounced against the cliff a few times before hitting the ground with a dull thud. He had no way of knowing how far down it was into the valley after his experiment but was certain that it was far enough to kill him if he fell.
A flash of blue and green light came from his left further down the road. John couldn’t tell where it had come from but had seen it fade deep behind the tree line. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky so he could rule out lightning and there was no sound that accompanied the lights meaning it wasn’t an explosion either. He carefully navigated the narrow pass, almost slipping down into the valley on more than one occasion. The light flashed again from the same place as the first. It illuminated the line of trees ahead of him, blue light pulsing in between the trunks of the trees. He heard shouts and screams from the distance; another flash of light told him which direction it had come from. The lights flashed faster as he hit the tree line, shadows danced in the glow in the distance. He heard no more shouts or screams but the lights continued to flash.
His feet pushed him forward, his curiosity nagged in his mind. It was worth the risk to find out what the lights were. He had heard several different voices as he approached, at least five different people. He hoped that he had found who he was looking for, but preacher had said that there were only two other people that had traveled with his daughter. Drifters he thought, or possibly a group of tribals, both could be extremely dangerous. If the girl was there, then he needed to find out what was happening. If she died, then he could never return to his home.
Another bright light burned just in front of John past the trees, he waited and listened. He heard a low hum that faded away until the forest was left silent. He waited for another flash of light. After a few moments he crept towards the edge of the trees, staking his torch down behind a thick trunked oak. The area just beyond the trees was a small clearing, a few trees dotted the middle with a large cloth draped from branches that were staked into the ground. It was some kind of camp he realized as the sweat and paranoia assaulted him. A few small fires burned in stone circles around the camp, but he saw no signs of people. He waited in the bush for a long moment, hoping to see someone come out from their hiding place or to see what had made the odd light that he was drawn to.
The moon was high in the night sky when John snuck into the camp. He constantly looked behind him and scanned the outer trees and the tops of the inner ones that the clothes were attached to for any signs of life. The cloth sheets were tattered and faded; some were just stitched together from many other types of material while others from animal hides and furs. Underneath the sheets were rolls to sleep on and various sizes of cups. He came across a barrel filled with water; he drank with a cupped hand. It was warm but clean with a slight woody and earthy taste to it. He found blankets with ropes tied in odd ways that seemed to act as some type of seat. He had seen some of the faithful ride on top of cows or mules before but had never seen them use anything like what he had found. He searched the camp but found no signs that anyone was there. He also couldn’t find any food stores or salvage among the various sleeping places he found. John felt like something was wrong with the camp; water with no food, sleeping mats with no one to sleep in them, and slowly dying fires with no one tending them.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
He laid down on a fur mat in one of the cloth overhangs nearest to the center of the clearing. He figured whoever was here had been raided, by what John couldn’t be sure. It had been a while since the shouts and lights stopped, he doubted either party would be coming back here tonight. At least that’s what he had hoped. A rustling came from the trees far away from where he was laying. John hid himself in the fur and peered into the dark from where he heard the sound. A large man limped out from the trees gripping his chest. John couldn’t make out any details from his vantage point. The man was looking over his shoulder as he limped past the spot that John was hiding. However, the man didn’t stop, he continued toward the opposite trees before tripping over a root and falling flat on his face. The man struggled for a moment, reaching his arm out pulling himself towards the tree line before collapsing back into the ground.
John watched and waited, but the man never moved, and nothing came after him from the other side of the clearing. John didn’t know if the man was alive, but he decided that he would help if he could. He carefully made his way over, sticking close to the shadows of the fading campfire. The first thing John noticed about the man was how large he was, a hulking mass that laid face down in the dirt. He wore a brown shirt and faded brown pants, the back of his shirt was torn with sticks and leaves stuck into the fabric. He knelt beside the man and saw his hands were tied together with rope that had dug deep into the man’s wrists turning the rope a dark red color.
“Hey.” John whispered. No response. John shook the man’s shoulder. “Hey, are you ok?” Again, he wasn’t answered. He tried to roll the large man over, only managing to lift his shoulder a few inches off the ground. John stepped around the other side and pulled hard from the man’s far shoulder, managing to pull him to his side before slowly lowering the man back to the ground. John instantly recognized the large man even through the bruised and bloody face. Breader’s youngest son laid on his back in the middle of the clearing staring into the night sky with bloodshot eyes and a look of panic on his face. The blurry red eyes slowly rolled towards John, though his expression remained the same. John didn’t think the apprentice Breader had recognized him, though he imagined the man didn’t understand anything happening around him in that condition. “What happened Breader? Who did this to you? Where is Preacher’s daughter?” he asked as he started to dig the various herbs and bandages he had carried with him from his satchel. Breader’s son didn’t seem to hear him, only bringing his bound hands in front of his chest reaching out to john.
John pulled at the ropes on Breader’s wrists which were slick and made it difficult for john to find the knot in the bindings. The man’s arms suddenly became heavy and fell to his chest. The light had faded from the youngest of Breader’s sons’ eyes, they stared at John empty and afraid. “No. Breader! Breader wake up. What happened?” He cried shaking the man’s shoulders hard, his head rolling limply from side to side. John didn’t know what to do. He had never seen anyone die before, he had seen dead people before, but he had never been there when it happened. It was sudden. One moment there was a hint of life and then nothing. The man looked the same, like he could wake up at any second. John knelt beside the man and cried.
Death wasn’t a new concept for John, he had experienced the feeling of his mother’s death and the death of the man his father used to be. He had seen the death of animals in his traps around his workshop home and even caused the merciful release of a few deer that hadn’t died before John found them. Bodies in the roads on the way to his “exorcisms” were common as were the piles of bones in open pits where the dead were placed after the fall. Yet, he had never seen a person die right before his eyes. He was terrified and angry; Angry at Preacher for sending him and Breader on their missions and angry at whoever had treated the man so poorly.
Exhausted, John stopped crying, his eyes were scratchy, and his vision blurred. Breader’s son was on his back looking into the sky through small gaps in the canopy, his hands palmed up over his chest. John noticed something moving slightly in the man’s hands. He pulled open the warm fingers on Breader’s hands and pulled a folded and wrinkled paper from them. It was dirty brown and yellow with tears at the edges. John carefully unfolded the page. It was a letter.
No one in the village was allowed to read or write except Preacher, his daughter, and watcher. Preacher had told the faithful that it was to protect them from the corrupted knowledge of the old world.
“A book could fill you with demons and dark desires to kill, steal, and lust.” Preacher would warn, “The demons will tell you wonderous stories of the dark times, try to tell you that it’s your destiny, but it’s a lie. They only want to control you, to keep you away from the truth of the almighty. They are a snake in this new Eden of ours. But we are not Adam, and we are not Govs. We will follow the words that were given to us and I will bear the risk and burden so that you may not need to.” Preacher would make it seem like it was for their best interest and that he did so as an act of sacrifice for the community, but John's father had been unconvinced by the show. His father had long accused Preacher of using the lack of knowledge and ability to read as a means of controlling the village.
Dear father, it began in a delicate yet hastily written script. I am safe for now. Something attacked us at the pilgrim's rest, it chased us deep into the cursewood. Little helper is gone, we got separated when the lights came. I’m going to find James. He will protect me. God is with me and he is with you. I will return home, I promise. Your daughter- John stared at the words. A tremble of anger came over him. The girl was by herself, sending Breader’s youngest son to his death and her own. If they had stayed together, they’d both be alive. All she did was cost the future of three people with her decision.
John reached over and pushed breader’s eyes closed. The man deserved a proper burial if nothing else. He pushed himself off the ground and turned to search the camp for a shovel. He was halfway to the tent that he had hid in when Breader had run into the campsite, when a glow cast a dark shadow against the cloth lean-to. His shadow was cast in a pulsing blue aura as the sound of chattering and buzzing echoed behind him. The hair on his neck stood straight, his body frozen in place by the chattering that had chased him down the road into the shrine. He craned his neck slowly over his shoulder, the muscles tense and his heart racing. The man on the ground was glowing from the inside, pulsing blue and green light like a heart still pounding in john’s chest. Black dust swept around him in odd sharp motions as more specs emerged and floated out of the dead son’s gapping mouth.
John ran, dodging through the camp and into the thick trees. The branches cut into him, tearing at his coat and face, pulling hair from his head as the wicked trees tried to hold him still. The buzzing followed him, it grew louder the faster he ran, he dug deep into his heart, letting the fear numb his mind and body. His only thoughts were on survival. His legs ached as he ran further into the woods, the buzzing was further away but John knew he needed to keep going. Mud smashed into his face, his foot catching on a looped root that was hidden in the dark of the forest floor. He wiped the mud from his face, and there laying the dark mud was a leathery tan and pink sac. He sloshed in the mud and continued running, filled with a new sense of fear and dread that carried his legs in the dark forest until he finally collapsed against a great oak tree.
Everything, according to plan.