Chapter fifteen: Through time
It was hard to run through millions stones of ruined houses scattered all over around. Twice I had to help Elizabeth into her feet as she had stumbled over them. Dusty, her hair disheveled, but she kept running ahead, and we followed without questioning. All in all neither Malcolm, nor I had any idea where to go.
“Keep your heads down,” I ordered as we rushed between broken walls that once had been houses, or even buildings.
Glancing back every time I met only darkness behind–disturbed darkness. The blackness itself was pursuing us.
“What can your eye see?” I asked Malcolm who was right behind me.
“Nothing,” he was short.
“Elizabeth,” I called to her. “Where are we going?”
“Just trust me,” she tossed back.
“I trust you. But I’d be feeling much comfortable if I knew where I go.”
“You’ll see. There is an exit there.”
“The way out?” I exclaimed.
“Yeah.”
I wanted her to tell me everything–how she knew about the exit, where it was–but I kept running my mouth shut.
I heard another wail this time sounding closer. Instinctively the three of us peered back in awe to see a smoky demon right in our tail, but the darkness covered the demons too well.
I can’t say how long we were running. My heart hammering, gasping for air, I kept following Elizabeth, avoiding large rocks that were randomly scattered on our way. The wind accompanied us all the time, hovering the cold air around us that pierced its way into my lungs every time I inhaled and froze my insides. My lungs felt to be two pieces of iceberg behind my chest. With time I became heavy, I couldn’t feel my toes and fingers, and it felt as if I was wearing an icy mask on my face.
“How long is left?” I asked Elizabeth my voice sounding unnatural as it struggled its way through my frozen throat.
“I can’t say. But it’s close,” she replied.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said vigorously.
I guessed we had covered a mile through ruins and half-standing houses and buildings. Every so often a wail would thunder the cold air shaking my back and then would get lost in the heart of the night in front of us.
Doubts entered my head. In the place like this you couldn’t trust even your own eyes. I recalled the last house we had been before from where we’d been teleported into this new, hell only knew what I could name it, town. I fled the house twice–first with Elizabeth in my arms and we had been falling for a minute or so and then I had gone through darkness and Elizabeth had turned into a demon. Second I had woken up in the same room and Elizabeth had saved both me and Malcolm. And I wondered whether this was really happening right now. I could’ve been lying in that room, unconsciousness, the liquid-looking nothingness that had been lurking behind the cracked wall covering the floor and pulling my mind into its depth. Maybe the three of us were still in that room, maybe we had never fled it.
I recalled what Malcolm had told me back in the café about the visions which drive the residents crazy. They grabbed your head and play with your mind pulling out the reality of you, and I remembered the guy on the street hitting his head against the street lamp. My consciousness could’ve been sucked by visions, the sense of reality been replaced by false one, and how was I supposed to know? I mightn’t have been in this night at all.
Malcolm wasn’t like him–too quiet, running a step behind me. And Elizabeth–she had been out and then had returned more determined assuring me she knew the way out of night, but only thing we could do was running.
With those thoughts in my head, my eyes dropped to the ground, I ran between two walls. I looked at Elizabeth’s direction. The darkness in front of us swayed, the air waved like liquid. I doubted my eyes, my legs hauling me into that phenomenon themselves.
Abruptly a man rushed out of the darkness and ran towards us. Like a soul-eater he was smoky, ghostly. He wasn’t really human, rather a hologram lost within the night.
I couldn’t see his face, but I was sure he was looking back over his shoulder as if something–a demon or a beast–was pursuing him. I slow down a bit, so did Elizabeth and Malcolm. She peeked back at me with a great surprise, opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it.
“What the–” A surprised voice let out of me.
I opened my mouth anew to call to the man but was interrupted by what happened next. A black thing about a dog size appeared from the darkness and flung itself onto the running man who grabbed the thing in mid-air and tossed it towards us. I didn’t have time to react. The thing flew across the distance between us and swooped down right at me. I shielded my head with my hands and tried to duck. There was no way to avoid the crash.
A panicked cry escaped my mouth when the black thing hit me. I expected pain, finding myself rolling on the ground the black thing in my arms. Instead it just passed through me like strong wind causing me to lose my balance and tumble to the ground. Before I would peer back the thing was pulled into the night and out of sight.
I kept staring at the spot where the black doglike thing had just vanished, my stomach flattering. The coldness when it had passed me numbed my mind and it stopped processing for a while.
At first I heard Elizabeth’s voice coming from far away, the next was stronger and the third sounded normal.
“Are you okay?” she was asking.
I looked up at her anxious face.
“What was that?” I managed to say.
Before she could reply, Malcolm, standing on my other side, pointed to where the strange man had come from.
“Watch out,” he said loudly.
A big shadow, darker than the night itself, followed the man who had just run past us. In a second it was going to engulf us, we had only a moment to react. The only thing I managed was holding Elizabeth’s hand, and with a shriek she flung herself onto me covering me with her body, Malcolm tossed himself aside to the ground. The shadow embraced us bringing a strong and cold wind that finally froze even my heart, my blood stopped in my veins. I tightened my arms around Elizabeth thinking that was the end of our incredibly journey.
We said nothing to each other, we couldn’t say anything because I thought my lips were glued together. It was like we had jumped into a fridge the air of it 100 degrees below zero.
I wished myself back to the town, to the threshold of hell. It seemed to me heaven among the night, the smoky soul-eaters, the ghostly man and the shadowy wind that went past us and was shortly gone. The first some seconds I didn’t let go of Elizabeth, keeping her tightly in my arms, so did she.
I opened my eyes slowly and regarded around. Malcolm was seated on the ground readjusting his rag on his face.
“It’s over,” I whispered in Elizabeth’s ear.
She let go of me and moved back. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know. We were through the most freezing shadow ever,” I answered and pulled myself into a sitting position. “What was that?”
She shrugged. I looked at the old man.
“We need to hide. The soul-eaters are still on us, remember?” he said.
I nodded.
“Can you stand up?” Elizabeth asked as she struggled into her feet dust falling from her clothes.
“Give me a hand,” I said.
It was easier than I’d expected. I thought my legs were as frozen as they were going to crack and shatter if I moved them.
“Let’s hide in that building,” Malcolm indicated the nearest one. More three walls that would go down any moment burying us beneath its weight than a building. Nevertheless we headed for it.
Elizabeth and I sat down on the ground at a corner. Malcolm leaned against the wall and exhaled a deep, cloudy breath. After the cold in the shadow the night air seemed to me warm.
Finally I broke the silence. “What was that?” she asked. “Another storm?”
“I don’t think so,” I expected a
supposition form Malcolm, but that was Elizabeth who answered me.
I looked at her with questioning eyebrows.
“When I saw that man I thought it was you,” she went on. “I’d been thinking you were always behind me.”
“I was always behind you, Elizabeth.”
“I know. I glanced back and saw you there. But then, I really had a strange sensation the running man was you.”
“I couldn’t be in two different places at the same time, could I?” I smirked.
“On Earth you couldn’t,” Malcolm said with husky voice. “In here–” he trailed off without finishing his thought.
“How many times were you in different places at the same time?” I asked him in annoyance. Elizabeth looked doubtfully at me. “That man wasn’t me,” I pointed to the way we’d come from, my eyebrows arched. “I don’t know what you saw there Elizabeth, but didn’t you notice it wasn’t even a human. Yes, outwardly it looked like a human, but it was… fuck. I can’t even describe it.”
“Smoky,” Elizabeth murmured.
“Yeah, whatever,” I let out angrily. “He didn’t have flash, he was a ghost, transparent.”
“Maybe because you appeared in the same place at the same time?” she supposed.
“That wasn’t me,” I said outraged. “Hell, open your eyes and look at me.” Instead she tilted her head and looked away, but I grabbed her by shoulder and shook her. “Look at me,” I demanded.
“Jonathan!” she pushed me back rudely.
“Calm down, Jonathan,” Malcolm jumped to his feet. Was he going to hit me? “We’re in fuckin’ evil world where everything could be possible. You can’t know for sure.”
I rose holding on to the wall. “I know where I’m. That man wasn’t me,” I said vigorously. Then it hit me and an awkward smile appeared on my face. “You think I’m not real. You think I’m a spy that the town put with you and is playing with your poor minds, don’t you?” I glanced at Elizabeth taking a pause. “If I was something else–a town freak, why would I free you, Elizabeth? Tell me, why would I come to your house and save you from the monster?”
“Who tells that she’s a real soul too?” Malcolm cut me off.
“Stop it,” Elizabeth put in and reached for my hand. “I didn’t think you aren’t real. I just say I saw you.”
“It can’t be me–” I urged.
“He moved like you, the same hair color,” Elizabeth began but I interrupted her turning to her.
“You didn’t see his face, did you?” I asked and she nodded. “Because there wasn’t a face.”
“I wouldn’t think I’d ever say this, but Elizabeth is right,” Malcolm murmured. “Seeing the man I also thought it was you.”
“Maybe this place plays with your mind and brings up some memories,” Elizabeth spluttered. “Jonathan, don’t freak out. I don’t think you’re a mirage.”
“Yeah. If you remember, the light in the town is on because of me. So I’m the only one among us to have chances to be real.”
I pulled my hand rudely and sat down. Elizabeth glanced at me resentfully, then she took a sit next to me. Malcolm came up to the hole on the wall which once had been a window and peeked out lightening a cigarette.
“Can you see anything?” I asked lowly.
“Nope,” he replied but kept looking out.
“You think it’s clever to smoke in night? The cigarette light gives us away.”
He grumbled something under his breath and put out the cigarette. I sighed dropping my eyes downwards, then I looked at Elizabeth. Her mouth twitched, she tried to smile but soon gave up.
“Where are we going?” I asked her. “You said there is a way out. How do you know that?”
“My house,” she said. “I can feel it in this place too. It’s calling me.”
“Why Malcolm can’t feel his house?” I thought aloud.
“She’s weak, her house has great power on her. I broke it a long time ago,” Malcolm explained peeking back over his shoulder. “The question is where your house is calling you?”
“At least we have a destination,” I didn’t let Elizabeth to answer. “How long left?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head then looked at me with narrowed eyes. “I feel it closer, but I can’t count the distance. I can say that we’re close.” She put her hand to her chest. “It hits right here.”
Two wails almost sounding simultaneously pierced the air, and the walls shook. They were too close as if the soul-eaters were next to me and were yelling in my ear. Elizabeth instinctively moved to me and found herself in my arms, Malcolm sat on his knees and looked at me in alarm. He put his finger to his mouth and froze. My breath caught in my chest, my hart forgot to beat, my ears strained to any sound.
They were out there, after us, closer that we’d thought.
We sat in silence for a long while afraid to move even our eyes. The cold air had its chance to possess us but we struggled hard to keep our bodies against shaking. Finally Elizabeth gave up and quivered in my arms like a leaf in a high wind.
“I’m sorry I shouted at you,” I dared a whisper.
“Never mind,” she mouthed.
Malcolm slowly and carefully stood up and reached the window. I dared not to call him, I let go Elizabeth pointing to the old man and started crawling to him.
As I peeked out nothing but silent darkness entered my view. Had the soul-eaters gone?
“What do you think?” I asked Malcolm as low as I could.
“We can risk a run to her house,” he pointed to Elizabeth who had shrunk in the corner, her body shaking. I felt my legs and hands quivering too, my lips should be dark blue.
“If we stay we’d freeze to–” I stopped in the middle sentence. I had wanted to say ‘freeze to death’. I didn’t know what would happen to us if we sit there and give us to coldness.
“They might be right there waiting for us to reveal ourselves.”
“Can’t we fight them? Didn’t Mangaliny mention anything?”
“Maybe in town we could fight a lone soul-eater, but in here–” he looked at his palms, so did I. The power I had used to feel in the town had gone with nightfall. “We’re rabbits in wolves’ territory. So we must stay low and crawl.”
“You don’t mean really crawling, do you?” I allowed a cold smile. Then I heard a sound of a stone to a stone and instantly looked in Elizabeth’s direction. She had stood up and was approaching to us.
Next moment Malcolm and I looked out the window in awe to see smoky demon. Luckily nothing was changed, the night stood undisturbed.
“Be careful,” I told Elizabeth as she was next to me. She just nodded and stole a look out.
“We must go,” she said. “I can’t stand cold anymore. Jonathan, we’re close. I believe we had come the half way already.”
“I think she’s right,” I told Malcolm. “The wails has stopped coming.”
“We run out and we might not make even ten steps,” Malcolm murmured. “If they are there in the dark, those soul-eaters, they are too fast.”
“Maybe they have caught that man, the other me,” I teased. “They couldn’t know how many of us are here. They just heard Elizabeth and came after us. So maybe this is our chance.”
My idea made Malcolm to tilt his head and muse. I waited patiently looking from him to Elizabeth.
“Look,” Elizabeth nudged my arm.
I noticed movements in the dark. Something was out there, approaching. Malcolm waved his hand meaning to hide, and I leaned against the wall, with one eye following the disturbed darkness.
Elizabeth took my hand into hers, brought her mouth to my ear and said in a hiss:
“I’m happy we met, Jonathan. Thank you for everything.”
I left the window and glanced in her sad eyes. She probably thought this was the end of everything, we were discovered. I caressed her cheek and pressed my forehead against hers. I wanted to say her I was happy too, and she had lightened my dire afterlife in the town. My lip
s didn’t move to let out a word, instead they found Elizabeth’s.
As the kiss was over, I looked into her eyes once again sadness still attached to them, but they also twinkled, I carefully peeked out the window and saw Mangaliny some steps away. I gave Malcolm a questioning look and he shrugged.
“What is it?” Elizabeth asked.
“The barwoman,” I answered. “Now we know where the door in the café leads to,” I said with a slight smile, though nobody saw it.
Even in the night Mangaliny looked humanly except her hair; if in the café they were dirty and unattractive, here they gleamed in the dark like thousands of diamond threads. She was clad in black dress that was wriggling in the wind in slow motion.
She kept staring ahead as if expecting someone, and we watched her in silence. After a while a soul-eater came into my view that glided over the ground to her. Malcolm and I exchange a look.
The demon came to a halt before Mangaliny and the next moment the silence was broken by its wail. Two demons started talking in alien language, rather gurgling than speaking. Then, all of a sudden, Mangaliny turned her gaze towards us. Both Malcolm and I jerked down but before she saw us. I was sure of that and was waiting two demons on us any moment. Nothing happened the next some seconds, the gurgling went on.
Malcolm dared another look the first. I followed him and peeked out to see them talking, Mangaliny showing something by her hand and indicating ahead. What were they talking about?
Another soul-eater came out of the dark and joined them. I felt a flatter in my stomach and looked at Elizabeth who hadn’t clue what was going outside. I thought of against keeping her informed. Any sound may spoil everything.
Mangaliny lowered her hand to her side, and the three demons started off widening the distance between us. Before she was out of my sight into the darkness she stole a last glance at as, a quick one.
“She buys time for us,” Malcolm guessed. “She’s taking them away.”
“You should definitely marry her,” I teased.
“What’s going on?” Elizabeth asked and I told her about Mangaliny shortly.
“Okay, we can go now,” I said. “Can you manage it?”
Elizabeth exhaled and nodded. I cupped her face with my icy hands.
“You’re on the lead,” I told her then glanced at Malcolm. “Ready?”
“Let’s go,” he replied.
Within seconds we were running again, first slowly as our legs were frozen.
I guessed we covered another mile when I finally spoke.
“Elizabeth,” I called to her.
“We’re almost there,” she didn’t let me to finish.
I looked at Malcolm running right next to me expecting to see him out of breath but the old solder seemed to be better runner than any of us.
Abruptly Elizabeth halted and I had to swerve not to run into her back.
“What is it?” I asked but Elizabeth didn’t respond as the answer was lying at our feet. It was me or rather the other me. A man like we’d seen before who’d been fleeing from shadow was lying unconscious, the skin on his face ruffling. The ground could be seen through him, he seemed unreal, and if I reached him I’d only touch the air.
“This’s not right,” I found myself mumbling. “My soul couldn’t be torn apart, can it?”
“Maybe this is something else,” Elizabeth spoke.
“Meaning?” I asked impatiently.
“This is so familiar to me,” she said slowly, thoughtful. “I saw you like this before. You’re going to keel over right now.”
As she finished the ghostly me opened its eyes and turned over onto his stomach. He didn’t heed us, he looked aside. I followed his gaze and saw a woman lying three steps far from us.
“Elizabeth,” I whispered.
“I know. That’s me,” she responded. Not really her, though. Like the man she was transparent and raffling–a hologram.
My ghost said something to the woman, his eyebrows arched in agony, and Elizabeth’s answered. The real Elizabeth wheeled around curtly and jerked aside. As I looked back I saw the humanoid monster’s hologram, the one that had attacked us in Elizabeth’s house, coming right into me. I stepped back. It walked past me and grabbed the man lifting him up.
“This is us at your house,” I said perplexed.
“Yes. We see what happened, we see the past,” Elizabeth said. “They don’t exist, they are fragments of us.”
“I’m starting to like her more than you Jonathan,” Malcolm said jokingly. “She does have meaning.”
“Did something like this happen in town?” I asked Malcolm.
“Never,” he was short.
“He’s choking you,” Elizabeth brought my eyes back at the monster holding me in the air. I glance back hoping to see the bright light piercing its way through the grey sky as I had seen in the town. Nothing.
When my gaze returned to the monster, my ghost was lying on the ground, Elizabeth at my side on her knees. Malcolm’s ghost was fighting the monster off.
“Let’s go,” I said. “We don’t have much time to watch the movie of our past.”
“Maybe this is the key to the door out of here?” Malcolm stopped me.
“This only attracts the demons. The key is Elizabeth’s house,” I said.
“What if it isn’t?”
“Then we’re done. I trust her feelings, so I’m with her.”
Elizabeth’s eyes gleamed. “Malcolm, I don’t know how it works but somehow I feel the exit is nearer than ever.”
At that very moment a wail thundered the air, its powerful wave hitting me in the chest and sending chills over my body. I was right, the demonstration of our past got too much attention.
“Go!” Malcolm ordered dryly.
We let the movie of our past went on and set off at a run. The wind now blew against us slowing us down. My ears were frozen and I thought if I touched them, they’d crack and split into pieces.
Wails followed each other now closer and closer coming from every direction. The demons were around us everywhere, encircling us.
“We’re almost there. I can feel it,” Elizabeth cried out over her shoulder. And then a soul-eater’s hideous face appeared in front of us blocking our way.