noct
patreon
52. Hiding Out
🕑 Added 2024-10-27 16:00:12 +0000 UTCPast the cannibal village stood a vast forest. The three of them sped into it, the cannibals on their heels. Isa took the lead, sprinting along with the familiarity of a local. Left, right, left again, and then a hairpin turn at a rock outcropping that led them down a narrow pass between two rock faces. Levi held out his arm, and the Armalgam skittered off, along the top of the pass. He followed Isa into the valley lighter, without his favorite undead.
The fastest cannibals followed them into the sharp ridge. One let out a gleeful laugh. She hauled back, preparing to throw her hatchet.
Rock ground on rock. The cannibals looked up just in time to watch a boulder plunge toward them. Hatchet-girl shrieked and raised her hatchet defensively, but it wasn’t enough. The boulder slammed down, smashing them to nothing but a lump of gore.
The Armalgam hopped down from above, sliding down the rock face to wait for them to catch up. Isa and Colin sprinted past first. As Levi passed, it hopped out and caught onto his shoulders, wrapping itself into place.
“This way,” Isa called tersely. She set her foot in a crack in the rock face, twisted her body sideways, and vanished.
“If you say so,” Levi muttered. He reached the place she’d vanished, and only then saw it. A sharp cleft cut into the rock. On this side of it, it had a long overhang that shadowed the entrance. He had to almost double back to slide in. Two steps in, he wedged, stuck.
Levi looked down at himself, then snapped his fingers. The Armalgam wiggled off him and crawled off ahead of him, turning itself wheel-ways. The Spinal Cord unwound from his midriff. He held it by one end, dragging it after him as he slowly stepped along the narrow passage.
Behind them, the cannibals reached the boulder. There was shouting, screaming. Torches lit the ridge in flickering red light. Levi watched it one second longer, then pushed on. They weren’t out of the woods yet. Literally or metaphorically speaking.
The narrow crag continued along for longer than Levi would have liked. The air grew cold and damp, with a tinge of stagnancy to it. Slowly, the crag widened, until it opened up all at once. Levi looked around, but there was nothing. Not a single scrap of light reached his eyes.
A familiar clicking sound echoed from in front of him. Levi looked up sharply, shocked. “No way.”
The slender flame of a plastic lighter flickered in front of Isa’s face. “I had to kill a man for this. Otherworld technology is highly valued over here, since otherworlders only bring over what we have in our possession when we… exit our origin worlds.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time someone’d kill for a lighter. So, where are we?” Levi looked around him.
As expected, he stood in a medium-sized cave, maybe the size of a living room. Stalactites and stalagmites joined together near the walls, parting at the cave’s apex like teeth in a jaw. In a corner, scraps of fabric were laid out in an approximation of a bed. Bats chittered overhead, displeased by their incursion. The floor was dark and slippery with their excrement.
Isa turned, gazing at the blankets in the corner. Levi followed her gaze. A few small items clustered around it, dusty with age. A small book. An oil lamp with a broken glass bulb. A rusty dagger. “My home. Or… what was my home.”
“Neat. Is it safe?”
She shook her head. “The cannibals know about this place. They ran me out of it enough times, back in the day. They may have forgotten about it over the years, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Levi drew a slow breath, then regretted it as the thick scent of guano smashed into his nose and mouth. “So we just backed ourselves into a dead end for fun?”
“No. There’s a rear exit. It lets out far enough from the entrance that we should be able to lose them for long enough to get a night’s rest. They shouldn’t know about that.” She grinned, slowly. “I ate all the ones who found it. It won’t stop them forever, but finding it should slow them.”
Levi nodded. “Then, what’s the hold up?”
“I paused for a reason. Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what, the bat guano slowly driving me mad?”
“Not that. You’re already crazy, so that can’t hurt. The dead.”
Brows furrowed, Levi turned, slowly. He closed his eyes, reaching out to his magic. The dead… dead…
The faint sense of cold, dead energy welled up from a corner. He turned, reaching out toward it. Bones clattered, glowing with the dimmest green light he’d ever seen. They coalesced into a fragile-looking skeleton. Its knees nocked, and its hands shook. It stumbled over to the rusty dagger in the corner and picked it up. Its old bones struggled to hold the weight of the weapon.
“Impressive,” Isa deadpanned.
“The way I like to see it, we’ve all just learned a valuable lesson about rezzing undead. The fresher the better!” Levi said cheerily. He gestured at the floor. A few newly-dead bats fluttered up to clutch the ceiling, some even with bits of flesh still stuck to their bones.
“What are those going to do?” Isa asked.
“Give the villagers something to think about. Like rabid bats.”
She tipped her head. “It might make them hesitate.”
In the not-so-distance, the hubbub of a mob sounded. Levi turned to Isa. “The rear exit?”
“Right this way.” She turned, leading the way deeper into the cave. At its rear, the ceiling descended as the walls closed in, creating a funnel of stone. Without hesitating, Isa lowered to her hip and slid in feet-first.
Levi shrugged and went to follow her, then paused. “Colin?”
“Uh, is it a bad time to mention that I don’t like tight spaces?” Colin asked, eyeing the hole nervously.
“Don’t worry. It’s only tight for fifteen minutes or so,” Isa replied.
“Fifteen minutes?” Colin tensed. He gripped his staff nervously.
Levi clapped him on the shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, you’re already dead. This can’t kill you.”
“I can get stuck in there forever? Yay!” Colin replied, even more nervous.
“Or you can stay here and enjoy the sensations of being eaten alive…unalive, down to your bones,” Levi suggested.
Colin pressed his lips together. He hesitated one more second, then shook his head. “Fuck. I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“Nope.”
He lowered to his side and scooted forward. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.” With a final short breath, he pushed himself into the breech.
Levi glanced back. He gave a jaunty wave to the undead in the cave, then slipped after the others.
The cave laid as it was, dark and quiet. The bats settled back in. One of the younger ones edged nervously toward the new bats. Its little nose twitched with curiosity. The new bats didn’t respond. It edged closer, yet more curious, and reached out a claw toward the strange new bats.
Smoke. Loud shouting. The young bat startled and flinched back, toward the others.
The first of the cannibals stumbled into the room. As he entered, the skeleton, hidden around the corner from the entrance, lunged. The rusty dagger stuck in the cannibal’s side. He grunted, then turned and socked the skeleton in the face. The skeleton’s skull went rolling, and it collapsed into a pile of dusty bones.
The other cannibals called forward. The first cannibal grunted back. He turned to the dagger in his gut.
As he reached for it, the undead bats swooped from the ceiling. Chittering viciously, they swooped at the cannibal’s eyes. He thrashed, trying to strike them out of the air. Another cannibal tried to emerge from the entrance, only for the lead cannibal to stumble into her. She shouted in annoyance and shoved him away. He shoved her back. The two began shouting, and the whole while, the bats swooped around them.
Ahead, in the narrow exit passage, Levi chuckled.
“What?” Colin asked, nervous.
“Nothing, nothing. Keep on keeping on. We’re almost to the end.”
“You’ve already said that fifty times.”
“And I haven’t been wrong yet.”
“I—you… what?”
“Almost there.”
They wiggled on, groping their way through the darkness.
