Exousia - The Patron Saints of the Damned -Book II

Chapter 20 – Sacrifice on

Brennan wasn’t sure which of his friends started running first, or if they all had. It all seemed like a blur. What he did know was that wolves were chasing him, that he had sprinted toward a tree, and that he stopped feeling the ground beneath him for an instant. Then he found himself falling into wet earth at the bottom of a hole. Immediately, he picked himself up and tried to climb up to the ground above him. He leaped and grabbed the edge, but the dirt crumbled beneath his weight. This sent him falling back into the hole. But this time, several bodies broke his fall. He got off them and then looked down at the three forms covered in dirt.

Jodie, Megan, Billy, and David were twisting and trying to push themselves to their feet. They then also tried to grab the ledge with the same results. They looked around the hole for any way to escape, but there seemed to be nothing.

The sounds of growling became louder, and there came a shriek of an animal in pain,

Megan frantically slapped her brother on the shoulder, getting his attention. Her strained mouth movements indicated that she was trying to fight for words.

“What, are you hurt?” Brennan asked, looking at her body for wounds or signs of a broken bone.

Megan shook her head and then forced herself to take a deep breath. “You remember back when we were kids, and you and Jodie would throw us across the pool?”

It took Brennan a moment, but he did begin to recall how he and Jodie would throw them. They would stand in the shallow end of the pool for the launch into the deep end. He and Jodie had each grabbed their own arm with one hand and one another’s arm with the other, forming a square between them. It was something one of Jodie’s cheerleader friends had taught them. The person being launched would stand on their arms and then be catapulted into the air as they jumped.

If they did that now … they could escape the hole! But there was a problem–the launchers themselves. Whoever threw the others would need someone at the top of the hole to pull them out. While she was strong, there was a significant weight difference between Megan and the rest of them. And between David’s injuries and Jodie’s state of mind, that left only himself.

Brennan helped Megan and Jodie get their arms right, grabbed onto both of their shoulders, and started lifting himself up onto the square platform they’d made of their arms. One twitch of their bodies and he was flying out of the hole. However, he only barely managed to avoid another hole in front of where he landed.

Brennan almost looked towards where sounds of wolves were but decided that he couldn’t afford to have another freak-out. Instead, he looked back over the edge of the hole and said, “You have about two feet of room before there’s another hole. Toss everybody up but not too far over the ledge. I’ll try to catch everyone.”

The rest of them looked up and nodded their dirt-streaked faces in understanding. Behind them, the hole seemed to have widened, and there were more faces among them. One of the others had either tried to climb or run along the thin wall of dirt beside their hole. This had caused the earth to collapse, joining them with Marshal, Derrick, and Sam. But somebody was missing.

Brennan looked around the hole a second time to be sure and then said, “Where’s Ted?”

Derrick’s eyes widened. He looked around frantically and then shoved his way past the others. With a hoarse voice, he said, “Throw me!”

Megan and Jodie threw him up, and Brennan caught him at the top so that he didn’t fall into the next hole.

Derrick immediately ran away from the group and started checking holes and calling his brother’s name.

Jodie and Megan launched the rest of them one by one, freeing more of them to look for their missing friend. Soon, all of them were out, and it was only a matter of getting the last three out of the hole. Not wanting to launch David, Brennan slowly pulled him out of the hole while Jodie pushed him up. David’s battered arms trembled dramatically from exhaustion, and it was taking them far longer to get him to the top than anyone else.

An intrusive thought told Brennan that every second he wasted in lifting his friends up put him in danger from the animals behind them. Again, he felt fear like tendrils creeping across his brain and tightening in his chest. He looked at the tree as he pulled Megan from the hole.

“Brennan!” Marshal said and jabbed a finger roughly into his shoulder. “Help me get Jodie!”

“Right, sorry!” Brennan replied, reaching a trembling hand into the hole.

-O-

Ted reached the hole just too late to stop the last of his friends from trying to run across the thin walls of dirt. Each of them was now trapped and scrambling toward the edge to try to escape. In a split-second decision, he turned right to try to find a way around the holes. If he could find a way to cross, then he could double back around and pull his friends up the other side. But he soon realized that there was no getting around the holes. They went on, all the way to the woods on the other side of the clearing. So, he looked back to where his friends were to see if they had been able to make it out of the hole.

One of them had; it looked like Brennan was standing on the other side reaching to help the others up.

It was then that Ted lost his footing and fell feet-first into a hole a bit behind the rest. The rough landing sent a jarring force through his body. Then he felt and heard a snap in his right ankle, followed by blinding pain. He tried to catch himself on his good leg, but it was not enough to stop his momentum. His face collided with the compact dirt that created the far wall of the hole.

-O-

While David was pulled to the surface of the hole, time seemed to slow down. He found himself deep in thought about the beings that chased them. For some reason, they made him remember the bones of the calf he’d seen in the woods. The picture of it was clear in his mind’s eye, bones lying in a patch of grass. Ants crawled across them, and the sun bleached them white from above. David wondered if the animal had been missed. It would have had a mother who probably felt some sense of loss, at least for a few hours after the calf’s death. Then, the cow would move on … and live beyond the one calf it lost. This was a good thing … it was a mercy that one could heal from loss, whether cow or human. But did that make the calf’s death or the mother’s cries okay?

What about himself and his friends–being chased and corralled by monsters that had the power to toy with their minds? Perhaps the monsters did not think humans capable of the same amount of thought or even depth of grief. And maybe they were right. David and his friends had been tied up, herded through the woods, toyed with, and their sanity broken down. In less than a day, they had been reduced to squabbling children. Why? To be watched? For the delicious meat of their souls to be tenderized before they were devoured? Maybe they tasted a little better with a look of horror in their eyes, as they turned on their friends and bludgeoned one another’s heads in with a hammer.

Was it even wrong? If these monsters truly could feel with a level of depth that caused his own to pale by comparison, maybe none of it was such a terrible cosmic atrocity. Whether they killed their livestock quickly or whether they enjoyed the screams. His own human horror would be the same as a cow’s frantic mooing at the slaughter.

David sighed. Somewhere deep within, he’d been convinced that humans were special. Even with all his cynicism and thinking, he was subconsciously narcissistic enough to believe this lie as much as anyone else. But the idea of “special” was a poison. It led people to think they had the right to do terrible things at the expense of others who they considered not to be “special.” Or, at best, it made people feel immune to things like the laws of nature. They told themselves that God or the Universe had something planned for them, they couldn’t possibly end up like all the corpses of the latest natural disaster, war, or shooting. It was a lie to cope with the countless terrifying truths of reality.

Still, David’s friends, his family, even his own life–they mattered … to him. Just like the calf had mattered to its mother.

The loss of the baby animal not been in the fact that it never had the chance to become sustenance for humans. In fact, it had been sacrificed to nature and consumed by greater gods than mere humans that would eat it with a side of ketchup. It had become sacrament for the bug gods, the sun gods, the grass gods, the decay gods. It had defied its would-be executioners at the cost of an alliance with the uncaring universe. The only thing better would have been one final chance to gore the matador–glory. Fate smiling upon it, leaping a fence to trample or gore a few spectators.

David smiled.

Perhaps these monsters were within their right, and perhaps the universe did not care. But that didn’t mean that David didn’t matter. Or even that he shouldn’t hate them both for what they would do to him and his friends. Like the calf, he could choose not to suffer the indignity of tenderizing fear and madness for his few remaining moments of life. Because his life was precious, if to nobody else then at least to him.

Even if David was no special snowflake to the cosmos, he loved his thoughts, his friends, his mom, and his dad. Even with the good and the bad, he had treasured his life. And he was within his right to end it on the terms that he deemed noble. Yes, he would be like the calf in the field, giving his soul to the sun to be bleached into horrifying perfection. Before it could be charred and darkened into something smoky and delicious for the monsters who craved the madness within him.

David only hoped that somebody would one day find his bones … and maybe take a picture or film them with a camcorder. He hoped that they would feel a sickening sense of nausea in the pit of their stomachs and a notion toward the cruel nature of life. He hoped it would make them at least think … and live life on their own terms.

More than that, however, David hoped his mother would cry for him, for whatever little that meant.

-O-

Exousia smiled with eyes that reflected the orange flames that she sent at her enemies. She created a wall of fire in the shape of a crescent that wrapped around the disgusting peasants, clothed in rags that did little to hide the sores and deformities that covered their sickly pale flesh. The fire would soon encircle them entirely so that she could purify them to ash. The only problem was that she was not sure that she had the energy to finish the job. Just keeping the wall in place was enough to make her entire body begin to sweat and shake from the strain.

The peasants smiled, seeming to sense this weakness. They stood still and watched with hungry expressions. They wanted to cannibalize her before they fled to the woods like a bunch of animals.

“We’re out. Let’s go!” one of the humans shouted from behind her.

Slowly, Exousia remembered where she actually was. Slowly, she began to discern reality from the illusion brought on by the magic. She sent one last blast of fire into the faces of the demons before the magic left just as quickly as it had arrived. Then, Exousia turned around, ran, and lunged with inhuman agility over the pits. It was fortunate that the demons had not dug as many holes beyond the closely spaced ones that formed the borders of the clearing.

Exousia ran toward the tree. As she did, she sensed the demons close behind–and more enter in from the sides of the forest. Some filled another pit beneath her as she again jumped over them entirely. She whispered a demon word, one of protection that druids of old had felt when defending their homes. For a moment, she saw the woods for what they had been before they were cursed.

Exousia touched the ground with her fists–still carrying her weapons. She allowed her will to be combined with that of the earth so that, together, they could protect themselves. In response, the land began to shake like a minor earthquake. The thin paths between the holes imploded, sending dirt flying in a blinding cloud all around and burying some of the demons.

Snarling, Exousia extended her fists and sent small jets of wind, filled with twigs and dry leaves, at two demons to her right. The force of it caused some of the twigs to embed themselves into the demons’ hides and eyes, while the wind itself knocked them off their feet. Again, she continued her sprint.

A demon lunged from the left.

Exousia dropped her staff and grabbed onto the demon as it struck—causing them to roll and tumble along the ground. Before it could bite into her throat, she used the momentum of their rolling to crush its temple with the handle of her knife. Bone snapped, and there was a brief wet sound when she pulled the metal bar from its flesh.

Exousia rolled onto her front, grabbed her staff again, and continued towards the tree. She stumbled several times as she ran, dodging and lifting her feet to just narrowly avoid teeth tearing into her flesh.

-O-

It took everything Brennan had to not look back at where a wall of fire burned with so much heat that he could feel it. At first, he even braved his fear enough to get close to the heat and the growling in his search for Ted. He felt fueled by shame for his cowardice before and wanted to make it up to his friends. But the longer that he stayed close to them, the more his head started to feel a sharp mix of pain and dizziness until thinking became hard. This forced him to search holes that were further and further from the fire, until he found that they were close enough to the enormous tree that he could so easily dash to safety. It took all his mental power to just fight the urge to run towards it, and he was eventually only able to make his way dizzily behind the others while they searched. His reserves of strength and courage were depleted. But he was still unwilling to abandon them to their deaths.

Brennan vaguely recalled a parable in Sunday school about a woman who had looked back at her burning city and been turned to salt as punishment. He’d never understood the temptation to face oncoming doom and destruction like he did the moment he turned. And though he was not transformed to salt, he immediately felt the consequences of his actions.

Voices began to whisper into his skull, most of which he couldn’t understand. Each one was like a television with lots of static at full volume. His ears felt like they were bleeding again and his brain lost the power to concentrate. He didn’t even notice that he had stopped moving or that his friends had moved on without him. Then, for a moment, it all quieted.

A single voice said, “Get her and run! Fight them. Remember? You are nobody’s pawn. Listen to my voice—quiet the others.” There was no real tone in the words, more like letters appearing vividly in the front of his mind.

Brennan, desperate to escape the onslaught of voices attacking him, focused on the words.

“The Woodcutter will only be able to keep the shadows at bay for so long. You need to get your friends to the tree.”

As if on cue, somebody screamed in a hoarse and terrified tone, “We’re out, let’s go!”

Brennan couldn’t tell in all the disorientation who had said it. Had someone else found Ted?

The Woodcutter seemed to have heard the shout and was retreating. And the shadows followed close behind.

“They will kill your friends. You have to get them, now!”

Brennan didn’t hesitate; he weaved between several holes and caught up with the rest quicker than he thought possible. He pointed at the direction incoming shadows,

All of them froze, their eyes wide with horror.

Brennan grabbed Marshal and Jodie forcefully and pushed them toward the tree until their feet caught up and they were running. But then Jodie turned back, grabbed Sam’s upper arm tightly, and sprinted toward the tree.

But Derrick wouldn’t go. He was still looking in the holes, ignoring everything happening around him.

Brennan grabbed his arm.

Without warning, Derrick’s fist shot out from his side and nailed him across the jaw. “Don’t touch me!” he screamed. He continued to call for his brother, running closer to the approaching creatures.

“David, Megan, go!” Brennan shouted, getting ready to drag his friend away by the ankles if he had to.

Without saying a word, David instead grabbed Brennan by the arm, brought him to Megan, and pushed them gently toward the tree. He looked at them with a strange glossy look—not scared, nor hurried, nor able to sense the danger that was approaching. There were a few dried tears upon an expressionless countenance. It was unclear whether it was serene or mournful.

“We’re out of time,” Brennan said, trying to get him to see the oncoming danger.

But David went back to help Derrick search.

Brennan very nearly joined them when the ground began to shake. Dirt exploded into the air and created a dust cloud that enveloped both Derrick and David. The cloud then started to move toward him. He looked at Megan and said, “David! We’ve got to go back for him! We’ve got to-” His words were choked off when he inhaled dirt and was sent into a coughing fit.

Megan did not go back into the dust cloud. She pulled him away.

Brennan struggled for breath, unable to do anything but follow with tears welling in his eyes from the dirt that scratched them harshly. Then, he felt a branch.

-O-

Derrick scrambled along the ground while dirt settled all around him. He felt his way from hole to hole. It took a moment or two to get a clear view of whether anything was inside each of them. Most were empty. And at least two had something much larger than a human, digging furiously to escape. Then, finally, he heard his brother’s voice.

“Help me.” The call came from a nearby hole.

Derrick crawled to the hole from which he heard the sound. He followed his brother’s voice until he knew that he was outside the right hole. Then he peered over the ledge and looked inside.

A paw as big around as a catcher’s mitt shot out of the hole and grabbed his chest. More like the claws of a lion than of a wolf, they dug into his skin and drove so much pain into him that he couldn’t even scream. Something inside with black eyes pulled him close and opened its mouth, saliva and black tar dripping from its enormous teeth.

An arm suddenly wrapped around Derrick’s torso. Then, a second one reached around and grabbed the smallest of the monster’s fingers tangled in his shirt. Whoever it was, they caught, twisted, and snapped the bone in the wolf’s finger. The monster screamed and fell backward into the pit, releasing its grip on his flesh.

Derrick fell away from the hole and looked up to see David. All at once, he was grateful to see his friend, yet horrified at seeing the otherworldly look in his heavy eyes. The look communicated something that Derrick did not want to understand. He forced himself to look away before he could think about it anymore.

Then, there was another voice that sounded like Ted’s. It was followed by heavy coughing. This one was only a hole’s length away from them.

Derrick kept his body further from the ledge so that he’d have a moment to back up if something else tried to grab him. But, when he cautiously looked into the hole, he saw his brother.

Ted was sitting in the half-collapsed hole, lying on his stomach. His entire body was covered in dirt, and there were two small mounds at his sides from having tried to dig himself out. His ankle looked twisted, no, badly broken. There was no way that he would be able to stand on it, much less use it to get out of the hole.

“I’m here.” Derrick got closer to the hole and reached his arm down.

Ted stood on his good foot, frantically hopped to the edge, and grabbed his hand.

“Derrick!” David shouted.

Derrick looked up to see a black wolf in the air, mid-lunge. He closed his eyes, felt a dull impact, and heard wet, popping grotesque sounds. But he felt nothing and so opened his eyes. He was completely unharmed!

But the wolf was on top of David. It was biting his arm and sliding him along the ground as if he were weightless.

Derrick looked back down in the hole and saw Ted groaning and holding his ankle with both hands. He realized that he’d unknowingly released his brother—whose ankle was now mangled even worse than before. He shouted, “I’m so sorry.” Tears mixed with dirt and ran down his face.

“Go, Derrick,” Ted said with a voice that was strained by immense pain.

No, Derrick wouldn’t leave his brother here to be eaten by monsters, even if he didn’t stand a chance. He sat there at the mouth of the hole, reaching.

“You have to go. Even if you pull me out, I’ll never dance again.” Ted chuckled and then groaned from the pain it caused him. Something in his eyes then changed. There was something else in them, a look like he’d lost something. But he shook his head and looked at his brother with tears. “If I get out of this hole, I’ll slow you all down.”

Derrick wouldn’t leave; he’d die with his brother before he abandoned him, especially after what he’d said before. He had to make things right, as difficult as it was to find the words.

Ted continued. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be loved and accepted by a family who cares about me. I got that, even though it didn’t look like what I thought it would. Even if we’re all going to die. I want you to feel just one time what I’ve always had: a brother who would do anything for him.”

“Ted!” Derrick screamed, reaching as far as he could, dangerously close to falling in the hole.

“Please, take him!” Ted shouted. He wasn’t looking at his brother anymore, but past him

Derrick shook his head, not understanding. He nearly spoke but choked on his words when he noticed a dark shadow drop into the pit. Then, something grabbed the back of his shirt and began dragging him away from the hole. He looked backward.

Jodie was pulling him toward the tree.

“Let me go, you fucker!” Derrick screamed, trying to claw at the dirt but only hurting his fingertips. He writhed and shouted his brother’s name as loudly as he could. But soon, he no longer saw the hole that his brother was in, only a dust cloud and a couple more shadows dipping into the holes.

Then, there was a scream.