The Dark Lands:
Discoveries
by:
Antonio Guadagno
Cover Art by:
Andre Jones
Published by:
Copyright © 2011 by Antonio Guadagno
*****
Dedicated to my beautiful bride, Crystal, without whom I never would have pursued my passion.
*****
Episode 0:
Fenced In
To tell this story, I have to go back, back before its beginning. You see, this story is not like every other one. Sure, it has love and hate, friendship and betrayal, peace and war, celebration and heartache, the One True God and many false ones, a Controller and a speaker, fences and fields, mythical creatures and, of course, zombies.
Every story should have zombies of one type or another, but this story, this one here, it has two types. I’ll get to them soon, but the real story is about two friends, some traveling, daddy issues, and what many would call destiny. To understand that story, however, I need to tell you this short one.
You see, you need to know more about these dark lands.
This story, the one I’m telling you now? The one that will introduce you to the twisted lands that serve up hideous monstrosities and evils as if they were Sunday dinner? This short story? It begins with a brother and sister. They live on a spider cattle farm in the Midwest, behind the First Fence, in the safest part of the most dangerous area of North America. But, before I get ahead of myself, we should check up on Luke and his little sister, Cyndi.
They’re running home.
Fast.
******
Luke held her hand as he ran, though he should have held his shoes. They’d been sewn back together so many times they were little more than spider cow silk all the way ‘round. He kicked up dust and ran as his right shoe began to unravel.
It wouldn’t rip. Spider cow silk is too strong for that, but it wasn’t weaved together, it was sewn. It held together what was left of the spider cow leather that originally made up the main part of the shoes. This leather was not as strong and did rip, allowing much of the silk to unravel.
Luke slowed and dropped his sister’s hand.
"Come on, Luke! Keep up!" she yelled back at him. "Even Snuffy’s ahead of you!"
She waved her teddy bear in the air as she smiled.
He bent over to pick up his shoe without stopping and then looked back.
The sides of the canyon rose high and steep beside them, but he wasn’t looking at them. He noticed the sun disappearing behind the horizon. The shadows of the canyon were growing too long and he knew they’d never make it home in time.
Then he saw it.
A shadow of a man standing on the edge of a cliff grabbed his eye for a brief moment, then it was gone.
They’re coming.
Cyndi looked back, but she couldn’t see her brother through the dust. His yellowed clothes, held together with leather and cloth and a lot of love and hope, made him nearly invisible. That’s the main reason she was surprised as he ran past her.
"Come on, Cyndi, keep up!" He yelled back at his little sister. "You know they’re due back soon." Luke looked back, but the figure was definitely gone. "A group was seen only a few days ago near the Jade’s farm."
"I’m coming; besides, we have at least an hour. They only come when it’s actually dark," she lowered her voice, "if they come at all."
"I heard that! You know they come," he glanced back again, "and not just at dark. I’ve seen them during the day. Now hurry up!"
You’ll have to forgive Luke for being so severe. Sure he was nervous because of the shadow he saw, but that could have been anyone. What he was really upset about was the attack that caused them to have to move in with their aunt and uncle.
He still remembered the last attack. His uncle came in at the last moment and saved the two children. He was too late for their mother and father, however. Luke was eight at the time, and had covered his sister’s eyes as he watched what happened to them.
As he watched what his Uncle had to do to his parents.
For his parents.
******
Let’s skip ahead a few minutes, though, shall we?
They made it to their aunt’s house safely and arrived just as their uncle was coming in from the pasture. Aunt Bayna was standing at the back door, giving all three her most stern look.
"How are the calflings doing, Uncle?" Luke asked as he knocked off his shoe and started in the door.
"Don’t you dare, Luke," Aunt Bayna interrupted. "You will explain to me why you’re running home late and with one shoe."
"Well, we were on our way home, on time, I promise, and, well, my shoe started to come apart." He held out the mass of silk and leather. "The leather ripped again. I only slowed down for a moment to take it off, but," he looked at his sister for help, but she offered nothing, "well, we ran home as fast as we could after that."
"Running? So that’s what happened to them, huh? You’ll be sewing them tonight, little sir."
Uncle Arlen waited a moment as Aunt Bayna gave him a look that he knew meant they’d discuss the rest later and that it was not going to go well for him. It was that universal look all women are granted upon adolescence. The one any man can recognize and learns quickly to fear.
The four all walked inside and began setting the table for dinner.
"Well, Luke, to answer your question, the spider calflings are doing better, for now," he turned to his wife and held his breath. The plate in his hand hung there as if saying the next thing would break it.
Aunt Bayna noticed and put her hands on her hips, looking at him expectantly.
"Well, Arlen? Out with it," she said.
"Kurt Jade stopped over. He said they’re going to make for the fences tonight. Wanted to know if we’d go with ‘em."
"You told them no, right?" she said as she resumed laying out dinner.
His lack of a quick response made her pause with a hot dish in her hands, much like the plate that remained in his. She looked him in the eyes and the children held their breath. "Arlen, what did you say?"
He sighed as if defeated and set the plate down, "I told them they could cross through the pasture, that’s all. And I told them that we would not be attempting it. We all know what happened when the Lonely’s tried last year and… well, not in front of Cyndi, huh?"
"You can tell me, Uncle Arlen. I’m eight now, I can handle it."
Luke started in, "Well, when they got there, the guards…"
"No! It’s not something an eight year old should hear, Luke," Arlen said and he was right. No eight year old should have heard the story Luke almost told his sister. "Anyway, this smells good, honey," Uncle Arlen sat at the table and pulled his chair close.
Aunt Bayna smiled sadly and sat down to eat her own dinner.
******
The two had discussed the fence in great detail and always disagreed about it. Arlen knew the danger, but thought they could make it during the day. Bayna thought it was too dangerous at any time and that they wouldn’t be safer outside the fence.
They argued about it so many times, each could argue the other’s points perfectly. The problem was, they still couldn’t agree. So Arlen, respecting his wife, decided they would stay for now.
Secretly he hoped the Jade’s would make it over the fence, not only because they were friends, but because he thought Kara Jade, Bayna’s best friend, since Libby Lonely died, would be over the fence. And with her over the fence, he hoped his wife would want to join them.
******
Soon after dinner, they all went to bed, except Uncle Arlen. He had the first watch. It was uneventful and boring, so let’s skip ahead to 3 hours later
when Aunt Bayna came to take her shift watching the property. That was when they heard the cattle. Eight-legged mammal arachnid hybrids that weigh over a ton each make a loud racket when they start to climb all over their barn webs.
"It’s probably just the Jades; I’ll go check it out. You stay here, Bayna," he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and squeezed her hand.
He went outside, loaded shotgun in hand, and crept through the pasture, toward the barn. A clang rang out and the sounds of all the cattle padding up and around the barn grew louder. He cocked his gun and rounded the corner. At the edge of the barn he saw an adult moving out of sight around the far side of the barn, then he noticed a shorter shadow creeping into the barn.
The moonlight gave him a brief but clear glimpse and he knew immediately who it was. He lowered his shotgun and called out, "Hey, Mara! You better keep up with your family, they went around the other side!"
He pointed to the far side of the barn.
Mara was ten years old. She had on her brother’s old overalls, worn and dirty, but holding together and not too loose on her. Arlen couldn’t see her freckles in the dark, but if not for them, her green eyes, and her red hair, he would have thought it was Cyndi. She stopped and looked at him, then back to the other side of the barn.
She began to wave and turn to run toward the other side of the barn as she called out, "Thank you, sir!"
Then she disappeared.
Arlen heard noises and knew the Jades were heading back and looking for Mara. He couldn’t see her at all.
Something pulled her into the barn. It must have. She couldn’t have just disappeared.
Arlen ran up to check it out, but the barn was dark. He brought his gun back up and aimed into the barn. The moon only lit a small patch of ground near the entrance.
Soon the Jades were right behind him.
"What happened? Where is Mara, Arlen?" Kara, her mother asked.
"She just disappeared into the barn, stay back," was Arlen’s calm response.
He was slowly stepping into the barn with his shotgun raised.
"It couldn’t be one of the spider cattle, could it, Arlen?" she asked.
He stopped and turned, looking at her with irritation.
Why doesn’t she let me just go in there and check?
Then he realized that she was worried. He would be too if it were Cyndi. Even though he knew the cattle were safe. He sighed and let out all his frustration with it.
"Nah, they’d never hurt anything human, unless they went Revenant, and we’d know that long before we put them away for the night." Turning again toward the barn, Owen called for Mara, "Mara, where are you, hun?"
"She is right here," a dark voice answered.
Arlen stopped breathing for a moment.
"It’s one of them!" he yelled finally. "Get to the house and get locked down, now!"
The others ran and listened to him. Arlen wasn’t the only one who had seen a Revenant in person and everyone knew that voice. He was the only one who had killed one, however.
But not before I could save Joe and Anna. What he did to them was horrible; he deserved his fate. But what I had to do to them-
He snapped out of it and focused. Walking slowly, he approached the dark voice.
"You are the murderer of Luc Bennet," the dark voice slowly annunciated from somewhere to Arlen’s right. "Plead your case, human."
"Your First Brother deserved that bullet and a thousand more for turning my brother and sister-in-law into filth like you."
"This filth, did it deserve what you did to it as well?"
The voice came from another corner, so he turned to face that one. Arlen knew it was playing games, but with Mara here he also knew he couldn’t fire at will.
"He killed them by turning them into flesh eating monsters. I just put them down."
"Put them down?" he asked from behind Arlen again. "Like a lame horse?"
"No. Like I’ll put you down," he looked around. If only he could see the Revenant’s eyes. "Now, give me back Mara and you can walk out of here."
"You wish to have the little girl back?" he laughed lightly. "Of course."
Her body flew from a corner to his left and flopped on the ground, lifeless.
"Now that I have had a snack… I will enjoy the main course."
******
Now, we leave the spider cattle to witness Arlen’s fate. For I have found that describing the atrocity that happened there in any detail does nothing to convey its gruesome and carnal nature. So we return, back to the house.
Bayna heard a gunshot as the Jades, without Mara, showed up at the back door. She rushed them all in and asked what was happening. They told her what Arlen said and she immediately ran to wake the children up.
Now, for Cyndi, this was a terrible thing. She was dreaming of her parents and candy and days before any worry of Revenant or zombies. She was shaken out of it, to a fearful aunt who was telling her to get up. She could see in Bayna’s eyes what was happening and reached back to grab Snuffy, her teddy bear.
For Luke, on the other hand, this was something he looked forward to. Like any 12 year old boy, he wanted to protect the family and had been dreaming of taking them to the fence and what he would do there.
For him this was a dream come true.
He would quickly come to regret that dream.
Bayna came back with Luke and Cyndi, and heard Mara before she saw her. She looked around for Arlen, but he wasn’t back yet.
"…and then that thing jumped down from the spider cow web, onto him and…" Mara started crying and couldn’t continue.
Then a sound came from the front door, a subtle knock.
The knock was so low that nobody heard it over her crying. Mara, however, heard the noise clearly and quickly wiped the tears away and grew calm. She briskly walked toward the door.
"I better go let my brother in," she called over her shoulder.
"Your brother is right here, Mara," said Kara, gesturing to her son.
Her father, Kurt, reached out to stop her and with no more than a slight contraction of her arm, she flung him across the room into a wooden chair. She continued, unfazed, to the door and opened it as horror, shock, and realization came to the rest of the families.
Then it hit Bayna. She realized what Mara was saying and that Arlen wasn’t coming back.
Nor was he the one at the door.
"Thank you, my new sister," a well-built Revenant soldier bent and caressed Mara’s cheek. "The Controller is happy; now go tell them why we are here."
He stood to his full height of 6’ 9" and folded his hands in front of him. He smiled at them all as if he were a polite dinner guest, then he laughed to himself at the thought of that and the ironic truth in it.
He patiently waited for Mara to tell the family that they were here not only to feed, No, he thought, but for revenge. You’re the ones who killed Luc Bennet, one of my First Brothers. And now, I, First Brother J’Nou Nguyen, and my new sister, Mara, will destroy you.
"We come to your home, not only to feed – the death of Luc Bennet, my First Brother’s First Brother, is on the heads of all of you. There were only a few and now there are less. For their death, y—"
Everyone’s ears rang in the small room and blood dripped down the wall near Mara. A hole went through her left cheek and out of the right side of her skull. Mara fell to the ground and her mother, Kara, leapt onto Cyndi who was shaking, holding the smoking 9mm pistol she’d pulled out of Snuffy.
"You shot my daughter!"
The two fell to the ground, with the bigger woman crushing Cyndi, but Aunt Bayna dove on them and pulled Kara off as she grabbed the gun.
"Now for you, zombie!" Aunt Bayna exclaimed as she pulled the trigger.
A hole opened in J’Nou’s chest.
"Do you not know how to shoot? Do you not know what we are? The zombies roam outside. We are Revenant," he squared his shoulders and looked down on Bayna. "Only your man was a worthy adversary."
Sneering, J’Nou walked to Mara and helped her up. She was wobbly, with her right ear missing, but she could function.
"Now you will need to feed more to heal that wound, little one," he bent down and spoke in a fatherly tone.
Mara looked up at him and nodded. She looked at her brother and lunged at him. He screamed for help as she feasted. The injury made her ravenously hungry.
"Come on! We have to leave now!" shouted Bayna.
Everyone followed her, except for Kara. She tried to wrestle Mara away.
"I won’t leave my children," she said.
Bayna called for her to follow, but it was too late. J’Nou and Mara were already upon her. Kara looked up and saw her daughter chewing her flesh as the hole in her face filled with blood and then skin. She smiled as her last thoughts were of giving her life for her child.
Mara thought nothing as a new voice pushed its way into her mind.
Kurt raised his gun and fired at J’Nou. He missed through the tears that filled his eyes. Time seemed to slow as he emptied his gun. Only two bullets hit J’Nou and neither of them were killing shots.
So he charged at the Revenant, knowing that he had no hope to overpower either of them. J’Nou tapped Mara’s shoulder and pointed. She followed his finger toward her father and stood slowly. Then she grabbed him and laid him down next to her mother.
******
Bayna led Luke and Cyndi through the hall toward a back room and to a shrine made to Spinner, the god of the spider cattle. She was worshipped to protect the herders of spider cattle.
"Aunt Bayna, why are we here? I think it’s too late for Spinner to help us now. She let us down," Luke said.
Bayna swept the totems, wooden and silk figures, off the shrine and pushed it aside. Now this Luke couldn’t believe, and his sister got one last giggle from his mouth hanging loose. Bayna pushed a door built into the wall to the side and revealed the side yard.
"We have only a short moment while they feed, hurry through," she said.
Cyndi didn’t realize she’d dropped Snuffy here until much later.
As they came into the yard, they noticed they were not alone. While the two Revenant inside were very dangerous, the 20 zombies shambling toward them outside was not a welcome sight.