Blue Flame, Book Three, "ASHES:" Part Six

ghostfish (60)in #story • 6 years ago (edited)

Part VI: Monster and Servant

Present Day:

Please note at this point the story picks up where book two has ended. Spoiler: if you haven't read book two, Jack Gemini, the anti-hero drives off after removing the Blue Flame, which is an amulet that has sealed off a portal to an underworld void. Now open dark creatures poor across the town of Kausia.

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Gash, Shuffle’s hybrid monster of a dog, howls into the night. Orange flames dance in the distance, burning what remains of Kausia. Most of the screaming has subsided. Darkly shadowed creatures scurry in the streets, preying on warm meat. Two figures stand watching. Black ash fills the sky.

“Remember that Chauncey?” Shuffle looked at the scar in his callused palm.

“Yes, Sir.” I remember. I was there.”

“That was over sixty cycles ago.” Shuffle studies his hand. “If Roy hadn’t pulled me away, I would have never let go.”

“Indeed, Sir.”

“And in that, I saw everything. And because of that I was able to crack the Flame, just enough… Enough to plague this town and its inhabitants.”

“The juice in which they boil, Sir.”

“What Chauncey?”

“The juice in which they boil. From these ashes we will build your temple and toast to this world’s decay.”

“Ah, yes. After all this waiting, all this trying. It is time.” Shuffle rolls his leathered fingers into a fist. He hears tire tracks in his front yard.

“Jack, that son of a bitch, did it. He was able to do what I so longed to accomplish all these years. He removed the seal. He unlocked the gateway to the other realm and released this darkness on the world. The fool doesn’t even know what he’s done.”

A scream echoes from below and is quickly silenced. Shuffle turns his gaze to Chauncey, standing at the doorway. “It’s time,” Shuffle says. “There is only one thing left for me to do.”

“Yes, Sir,” Chauncey says with a nod, handing Shuffle a curved-blade sickle.

Shuffle steps down from the front door of his mansion and makes his way toward the pillar in the distance.

Multi-eyed, and many-limbed creatures line the streets, feasting on the still warm remains of departed Kausian citizens. Teeth and claws tear flesh and bone, spilling pools of blood into the dirt. Bodies of decrepit Kausians lay scattered in the road, missing their arms, legs, and heads. Entrails decorated the bodies.

A lizard-like creature hunches over, gorging itself on a corpse. Thick scales and thorns protrude from its back. It looks to see who approaches, momentarily distracted from its meal. One eye missing, dangling from a socket. Blisters alongside its face pop, and leak dark fluid. It slurps up the entrails of a child who is clutching a doll in a blue dress. Shuffle glances at the creature and its victim as he casually walks through the streets; the conductor to an orchestra of death.

The light of the blue dawn bends around the horizon. Sunrays shoot through the streets. New screams shatter the air. Blood curdling squeals fill the village. The sun’s light lands on the monster at Shuffle’s feet. Its black leathery skin begins to bubble and melt off its internal skeleton. It tries to shield itself from the light, but the sun cuts through, setting it on fire. The creature attempts to speak, but its words are drowned in a flood of black bile and partially chewed body parts. It gurgles and convulses as white fire consumes it.

Across town, bright flashes of white hiss, and the stench of burning flesh fills the air.

Shuffle approaches a figure, tall and strong, wearing a thick fur coat and the head of a bison. Elongated horns rap down each side of its head and loop up to a point. The Being walks deliberately and with closed fists. “I am Zethar, the Silent Observer.” It’s voice is omnipresent, commanding, and erupts from the creature without it needing to open its mouth. The words fill Shuffle’s head causing him to fall to his knees and grab his face.

The Being stops before Shuffle and points one of its three fingers at him. “You have disrupted the balance. Now all will fall to black, and those that do not wish to be will come, and all those that wish to rest must wake. You undid what cannot be redone. You have broken the truce, and opened what cannot be. Now the flood must return.”

Blood tears in Shuffle’s eyes and ears. He attempts to wipe it, streaking the blood across his face. He doesn’t understand. Near blind he slashes up and forward with the sickle. It sticks and he plunges harder thrusting upward as he stands to his feet.

“Be gone with you Spirit Walker!” Shuffle shouts blinking the blood from his eyes to see that the Being is no longer there and that his blade has penetrated the ribcage of a crippled Kausian man. The skeletal body jerks and twitches on the end of the sickle, slightly suspended off the ground. The man tries to whisper something with his last breath. Shuffle heeds no warning and yanks the blade up, slicing the body in half and decorating himself in blood. The dry desert swallows the red liquid. Shuffle steps over the spreading fluid and continues towards his destination.

Near the mouth of the cave, blistering in the sun, a familiar, yet unrecognizable creature crawls, trying to reach the dark sanctuary within. It turns around to see what approaches. “Master… Help.”

Shuffle walks up to the undead, rotting corpse of Frank, and crouches down to look him in the eye. “What have I done?” He said gripping Frank’s chin and studying his face. Little pink maggots wiggle and fall out of the open wounds in his skull. In the sun they dry up and turn to dust. Frank’s entire body smolders and deflates as the once plentiful maggot population, that had regenerated him, begin to die. “Maybe there still is need of you.”

Frank utters a vowel an unintelligible sound, and his jaw falls off, crumbling as it hits the ground. His thin black tongue turns white and begins to crack and crumble.

“There is not much time.” Shuffle swings the sickle and decapitates Frank. Uncloaking himself and exposing his pale flesh to the sun, Shuffle wraps his garment around Frank’s head and carries it to the cave. Boils and blisters form and pop on Shuffle’s shoulders, neck, and back. Once inside the cave, flies and insects find his open, festering wounds.

He walks the long dark hall, created so long ago. Now littered with bone and bodies. The walls pulsate with iridescent light. Slowly and rhythmically, he descends the stone carved staircase cradling Frank’s head, which is now dripping black fluids and pink worms. Small tentacles start to grow out of the neck.

“Your strength is locked here, Frank. You must remain and guard it.”

Frank’s mouth gurgles, trying to mutter something.

At the bottom of the cave, Shuffle approaches the flameless unlocked pit. The doorway. The portal. Inside, the surface of the pool was mirror calm and metallic black. Kneeling down before it, and setting Frank’s head aside, he whispers, “My Masters. I have come.”

The dark pool did not respond.

With a long sharp thumbnail, Shuffle cuts open his palm. His blood, dark and thick, drips onto the surface of the pit. It sits there, little round beads on an impenetrable liquid shell. The beads finally collect at the center, and begin to push into the dark pool’s meniscus, before dropping through and disappearing into the black mirror. Shuffle lowered his bleeding hand over the pool, unable to stop himself from doing what he knew he should not do.

He touched the surface.

It felt neither cold nor hot. It had no sensation at all.

There was no resistance, and his entire hand pushed through.

He falls forward. For the first time, he feels something he hadn’t felt before.

Fear.

He felt fear like he had never known.

And, the screaming began.