Crown of Vengeance Read online

  She extended it towards Mershad. “Here, take this. I’m pretty confident that those things in the trees could not take a solid hit from something like this.”

  Mershad reached out and took the offered branch, nodding to her. She watched his expression relax just a little as he gripped the stalwart branch, clearly feeling a little less vulnerable.

  “And now for myself,” she remarked, locating another suitable branch. Clasping it firmly, she held it out in front of her. “It will work fine. Just in case. But I don’t think we will have much to fear from those little winged guys.”

  “My brain says we won’t, but I just had no idea what they were,” Mershad replied.

  “Hence, precautions,” Erika said, bringing the stick about in a powerful swing that swooshed through the air. As if taking her gesture as a cue, Mershad whipped his own branch-staff through the air.

  “You’ve got the hang of it,” Erika said approvingly, forcing a broad smile despite her ginger nerves. “Well, let’s get going. We need to find someone or something more familiar in this area.”

  Erika started forward, resuming her long, easy strides. Mershad hustled up and walked along at her side, beginning to use his branch like a walking stick. She noticed that he glanced behind them less and less often, as they continued forth without incident through the forest for the next couple of hours.

  To her relief, they encountered no more unusual creatures. More promising, they saw several birds that were of very familiar forms. Among those that she recognized were sparrows, finches, and even a couple of large, black crows. The familiar caws of the latter were welcome music to her ears.

  Her tensions gradually lessened, and her spirit became more emboldened as they continued their long march beneath the trees. Mershad seemed content to walk in silence, but she suspected that under the surface his mind was racing with thoughts. She did not disturb him. Erika took the silent time to attend to her own thoughts. There was little else for her to do at the moment, except to avoid being lulled into complacency.

  Erika could not begin to comprehend what had happened to her and Mershad. She had no idea as to what the fog was, or how they had gotten to the forest, much less why it had happened in the first place.

  There had been no sensation of travel. The fog had merely appeared, and then departed, revealing a whole new environment around them.

  Erika found that she was eminently grateful for the presence of another person with her during the harrowing experience, especially one that she already knew. She was not entirely sure if her mind could have handled such an event by herself. At the same time, she knew that while she derived some stability from having Mershad with her, she also had some new responsibilities.

  With their whole world shaken, Erika knew that Mershad needed her as well, immersed as they were in an experience whose nature neither of them had an inkling of. She knew that she had to be as strong as she could for his sake, and resolved herself to that course even though she suspected that the fox-bats and the blue-green sky were not the last surprises that they would encounter.

  LOGAN

  “Thick. That’s really, really thick,” uttered Antonio.

  Logan had no disagreements, seeing how the bright headlamps on the car, normally intensely illuminating, did little to cut through the dense mists all around them. His nerves were tingling as they crept through the fog. He feared that they were risking a collision any second with another car exhibiting less caution than they were.

  “I’ve never been through fog like this. Nothing like this before. Never,” Antonio said emphatically. “There’s been fog on this road before, but I’ve never seen anything close.”

  They had already slowed down to barely a crawl, as their visibility lowered to just a few feet ahead. Logan felt increasingly vulnerable.

  “Just our luck!” Logan finally snapped, frustrated and incredulous. “You know … we don’t ask for much in this world. We just want to take a break to get a damn milk shake … and, lo and behold, the world’s most dense fog bank ever has to manifest and roll in out of nowhere, right here, to make even getting a simple milk shake a major frigging endeavor!”

  “Hard luck champion,” observed Antonio, his right hand nervously clutching the passenger side door handle. “I think that we hold the titles in that division, counting all weight classes.”

  Again, Logan had no disputes.

  The ride suddenly became extremely bumpy, as the smoothness of the paved road changed to the uneven surface of grass-covered ground. Logan’s heart caught in his throat. Seeing a patch of grass in front of him, he feared that they had somehow gone off of the road.

  Logan pulled the car up into a complete halt, not wanting to risk anything further. He cursed under his breath in frustration.

  “What the hell is this? I know I didn’t go off of the road. It was right there, even if I could only see a couple of feet. This ground just came out of nowhere, running right into the road.”

  “It’s okay. It happens. People go off the road in bad visibility,” Antonio said. “It’s just good that you were going slow and we didn’t wreck. No harm done.”

  Despite his friend’s attempts at reassuring words, one glance told Logan that Antonio was a nervous wreck. Antonio’s eyes had been riveted ahead, and Logan knew that Antonio had also seen that they had been squarely aligned on the road. Logan had not deviated from their course in the least.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. I can’t just pull the car around, and blindly head for the road. Who knows who else is trying to get through this? We wouldn’t know until it’s too late, in this kind of visibility,” Logan vented, exasperated. “I think that we are stuck for a while, at least until this clears up somewhat.”

  Antonio nodded. “I understand. Well, let’s get out of the car. Let’s walk, and see how far it is to the road. We could easily hear another car coming, at least. And it might be safer that way, than being stationary targets in a parked car.”

  Having his car wrecked in the impenetrable fog was the last thing that Logan needed to have happen right then. He took a deep breath, beginning to get his bearings.

  “Yeah, and that’s about all that we can do right now,” he declared, feeling more resolved. “I’m putting the hazards on, though, and keeping the lights on for a few minutes. Hopefully someone will make something out before they crash into it.”

  Taking the keys out of the ignition, he listened to the click as he pulled the hazard light switch. He then opened up his door and got out.

  Antonio got out on his side, and the shutting of their doors was the only sound within the still, heavy air. Logan walked around the car to the rear, astounded at the sheer thickness of the fog. The flashing hazard lights were swallowed up just a few paces away.

  With Antonio close behind him, he started forward, heading straight towards where he knew that the road had been. When they had gotten just a few feet away, they could not see any sign at all of the car behind them.

  “Better not lose track of it,” Logan growled. “We shouldn’t stray out that far, but I know the road is right about where we are. We stopped almost immediately after I felt uneven ground.”

  “Should be real close,” Antonio agreed.

  “But I’m beginning to think that if another car comes through this, I’d might want to be in a car when it hits, rather than be hit outside of a car,” Logan remarked, drawing to a halt. “Don’t forget, if they can’t see the car with the lights on, then they certainly can’t see us.”

  Antonio frowned as he thought about that troubling verity for a moment.

  “I’ll second that notion,” he replied. He looked around then, his eyes narrowing in scrutiny as if taking note of something. “But maybe we won’t have to wait for that long. It looks like things are starting to thin out already, or is it just my mind?”

  Logan looked around himself, and quietly studied the mists pervading the air around them. After carefully watching it for a couple of minutes, it was clear that the
fog was indeed thinning out, for their field of vision was observably expanding.

  “Well, that’s the first good news that we’ve had in quite a while,” Logan replied sarcastically, turning around to head back towards the car.

  After they had gotten about twenty feet, Logan, with Antonio following his cue, came to an abrupt halt.

  “It should be here. We didn’t get that far at all,” Logan avowed. “Not far enough to lose track of the car.”

  “No we didn’t,” agreed Antonio firmly.

  The amount of ground that they could see steadily continued to grow, as if the land itself were generating out of a gray void in all directions.

  “Sure, it got stolen right after we moved. Like I am going to believe that. We should have seen it by now,” Logan said, his ire and disbelief rising rapidly.

  “We would have heard something if it did,” Antonio reminded his friend, earnestly trying to soothe Logan’s rising anger.

  “I was just being sarcastic about the car being stolen. There isn’t any way that could have happened, and I’ve still got the keys,” Logan said sharply, holding the keys up in his hand for his friend to see. “But where is it then?”

  “Right around here,” Antonio said, looking equally mystified.

  “Around where?” Logan stammered, holding his arms out wide.

  “We didn’t go that … “

  Rays of strong light cut through the fog from above them, and everything around them seemed to be lightening swiftly.

  “What in the world is going on here?” muttered Logan.

  He flinched in surprise as the misty cover above them parted and thinned out, letting through more of the piercing rays that soon became a flood of unmistakable daylight.

  “Man … oh man … this is weird, way too weird,” Antonio mumbled, as the advancing force of daylight routed the last remnants of the mists around them.

  All evidence of the dense mass of fog was completely gone. So too was any sign of the road or the car.

  Night had suddenly become day, the dark, black sky being fully replaced by a creamy, greenish-blue hue lit by a bright sun overhead. Stretched out before them were rolling grasslands that ended in a long line of woods just at the edge of their vision.

  “This is weird, this is weird,” Antonio said, repeating himself, as he gazed steadily into the unusual sky above. “Where are we?”

  “Believe me, I’m wondering the same thing,” Logan replied, his hardened demeanor shaken by the incredible changes that had taken place around them. Shading his eyes with his right hand, he turned slowly around in a full circle. There was nothing but the expanse of undulating grasslands and copses of trees in one direction. In the other was the line of woods that demarcated the beginning of an enormous, forested region.

  Even more disturbing, there was no sign at all of the world that he knew; the encompassing diorama was fully devoid of any signs of human existence.

  After a few more minutes passed, Logan slowly turned to look at Antonio. He found that his friend was looking expectantly towards him, a frightened, almost childlike expression spread on his face.

  “So what do we do now?” Antonio asked, looking pleadingly at Logan, as if he would somehow have the answers.

  “I have absolutely no clue,” Logan responded regretfully, an edge to his voice.

  Logan paused for a few more moments, gathering more composure, before continuing, “Maybe we should just wait and see what happens, and hope that someone turns up. Or we could just go wandering off in this place that we’ve never seen before.”

  The words were spoken flippantly, exuding a sarcasm that emphasized the seeming futility of it all.

  “We’ll probably get nowhere by just waiting for things to happen. It’s never worked like that in all of my previous life, and I don’t think my luck appears to be changing now, unless for the worse,” Antonio said, his breath short as he struggled with his nervousness.

  “Good point,” Logan said curtly, placing his hands upon his hips.

  With the tip of his right work boot, he idly dug around in the grass. He then shook his head and let out a deep, sustained exhalation, as if willing some of the coiling tension in him to ease out of his body. There was one thought that tilted the balance of the frustrating indecision now holding him in place.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t stand right out in the open, where anyone, or anything, can see us so easily,” Logan said in an even, careful tone as he looked at Antonio. “Let’s do something, at least so we don’t lose our minds. Well, let’s get a move on it, and maybe get ourselves just inside the borders of those woods, unless you have any objections.”

  “Sounds like the best option we’ve got,” Antonio replied.

  Following Logan’s lead, they started off at a quick pace towards the extended tree line on the horizon. They constantly scanned around for the sight of anything that could give them any insights into the causes or full state of their current predicament. Their bolstered level of wariness heightened their senses, causing their attentions to snap in a flash towards a singular bird that flew across the sky.

  “Well, it looks like we’ve got that little wish that you made last night,” Antonio said, breaking the silence.

  Logan rolled his eyes. “Sure did. I bet you are going to tell me to be careful what I wish for. Don’t even say it. I can assure you that this isn’t what I had in mind.”

  “I wasn’t about to say it, but I’m frightened,” Antonio admitted.

  “And so am I,” Logan replied, his face smiling ruefully at the open admission for just a moment. An edge of grim determination swelled in his voice as he continued, “But I’m not going to give in to this ridiculous event that’s been foisted upon us. We are going to stick together to get through this crazy thing.”

  “We’ll stick together,” Antonio echoed, nodding quickly.

  For the second time in recent moments, Antonio had the air of a scared child about him.

  “Yes, together,” Logan confirmed, before vowing angrily, shouting to the sky, “And I can assure you, that when I find out why this all happened, and who or what was responsible, we are going to set some things straight!”

  Logan knew that they both harbored fears of the unknown, but where Antonio was willing to feel fragile and utterly helpless, the sheer fury of Logan’s ire at their undeserved predicament reinforced his chosen course of action.

  Fully resolved not to go down without a fight, and with a deep hunger to find out why they had been ripped away from their world, Logan clenched his jaws as he continued to ruminate upon their situation. He was committed to regaining the bearings in their lives once again. Their core foundations, those very elements that helped them rise to face the day from one morning to the next, had been severely violated. Yet as far as Logan was concerned, as a blaze of righteous anger was stoked within him, it would not be irrevocably violated.

  JANUS

  “This mist is absolutely insane. I can’t see a damn thing!” Kent spat out angrily, cursing as he strained to look forward from the bow of the watercraft.

  “We’ll probably have to just cut the engine off,” Derek replied calmly, though a look of concern shone in his eyes.

  Janus fully concurred with Derek’s choice, his own concern at possibly wrecking Kent’s father’s boat rapidly increasing. His confounded eyes told him in no uncertain terms that they would be wise to concede for the moment, rather than force themselves to take on any ill-advised risks in trying to blindly navigate through the mist.

  The unusually dense fog choked off all visibility. Another boat could easily be just five feet away from them. Janus could only hope that they heard it, as he was certain that they would not see it until it was far too late.

  After a moment, Janus voiced his full consent with Derek’s proposition.

  “Shouldn’t we try and get somewhere?” Kent countered with a look of desperation. “We could be hit by anything.”

  Janus understood Kent’s worries as well, as i
t was indeed quite unsettling floating about in the water, adrift within the midst of the impenetrable fog. Furthermore, any manner of objects might be close, from docks to shore ground. It was not just a matter of other boaters out on the lake.

  “You are right. It’s not just the other boats we have to worry about. I know what you are thinking, Kent. We could be beached any minute without warning,” Janus said gently. “But if we cut the engine, we lessen any risks of damage to your father’s boat, even if we were to run aground. And that way we will also be better able to hear something approaching us, so that we can try and warn them.”

  Kent stared at Janus, and then looked to Derek for a moment.

  “Yeah, I guess that you guys are right. Damn! Why did this have to happen?” Kent stated in clear resignation. He nodded and gestured to Derek, indicating for him to go ahead and cut the engine off.

  When the motor died down, all they could hear was the gentle sound of the water lapping up against the sides of the boat. A foreboding, eerie silence hung heavily in the air about them, the sheer lack of sounds escalating Janus’ tensions. All throughout the sojourn, the wisps of music and laughter had carried through the air from the various houses. It was as if the fog closed off sound as much as it did sight.

  For the next several minutes, they drifted idly in the water, listening intently for the sounds of any other boat or person. Kent kept the headlights on full beam, and they honked the horn periodically.

  It did not take very long for their frustrations at the situation to mount steadily. Kent was the first to give voice to them.

  “So, are we going to sit here all night? Are we?” It was evident that his patience was quickly wearing thin. “All I want to think about is drinking a few more beers, and then crashing for the night under warm covers, in a nice king-sized bed.”

  “Would be nice to round out the evening that way. If we could see for even ten feet ahead of us, I think we could go for it,” Derek advised. “With the headlights on, and the horn and us calling out, we might be able to pull it off very slowly. But we can’t even see five feet from the side of the boat. This fog is far too risky to try anything yet.”