Morgan awoke in a dream, or so
it felt.
Light flooded his vision, and coalesced into a vastly different world
before him. Tall cliffs rose on either
side of him. Wind raged through the
narrow pass in which he stood, carrying with it the salty smell of the ocean,
the metallic tinge of blood, and the stench of human decay and excrement. His vision was narrowed by the heavy metal
helmet that curved around the arch of his brow and down the bridge of his
nose. The wind chilled his sweaty skin
and brought sand to abrade his exposed flesh.
A large, circular shield of bronze held fast to his left arm, hugged to
his torso. He carried a tall spear in
his right that extended upward nearly two feet above his own head. His chest was clad in a thin chest plate that
left his arms bare. A short blade,
perhaps two or two and a half feet in length from hilt to tip, hung from his
waist, clanking against the armored battle dress that adorned his lower
half. Shin protectors were strapped over
the rough cowhide sandals that laced up his calves to the knee.
The sky overhead roiled with dark clouds, rays of sun graced the landscape through patches in the dense cloud across the horizon. Morgan watched, an observer, through the eyes of another. This he knew, for his body reacted without conscious will, as though reflexively. The shield hefted higher, and he began to march. Around him, ranks of men, before and behind, marched in unison; their eyes were hardened and emotionless, their bodies knotted with muscle and adorned with scar tissue. The ground was uneven beneath his feet as he trod onward. He looked beneath his soles to find the faces of the dead. Enemies, he knew, somehow. Moans and cries of pain were silenced as the weight of hundreds of soldiers crushed those unfortunate enough to have survived the onslaught underfoot. Morgan, in his observant consciousness, felt a wave of revulsion, but this body he inhabited did not share the stomach churning feeling. He returned his gaze forward to see them approach the mouth of the canyon. A call to halt boomed between the massive walls on either side, and at once, obediently, the mass of soldiers planted their feet, raising their shields, and hefting their spears. Morgan’s own shield went up and his grip changed upon the wicked javelin he held.
The sky overhead roiled with dark clouds, rays of sun graced the landscape through patches in the dense cloud across the horizon. Morgan watched, an observer, through the eyes of another. This he knew, for his body reacted without conscious will, as though reflexively. The shield hefted higher, and he began to march. Around him, ranks of men, before and behind, marched in unison; their eyes were hardened and emotionless, their bodies knotted with muscle and adorned with scar tissue. The ground was uneven beneath his feet as he trod onward. He looked beneath his soles to find the faces of the dead. Enemies, he knew, somehow. Moans and cries of pain were silenced as the weight of hundreds of soldiers crushed those unfortunate enough to have survived the onslaught underfoot. Morgan, in his observant consciousness, felt a wave of revulsion, but this body he inhabited did not share the stomach churning feeling. He returned his gaze forward to see them approach the mouth of the canyon. A call to halt boomed between the massive walls on either side, and at once, obediently, the mass of soldiers planted their feet, raising their shields, and hefting their spears. Morgan’s own shield went up and his grip changed upon the wicked javelin he held.
Three ranks from the front, Morgan could see, now, beyond the mouth of
the canyon. A vast legion stood beyond
the walls to meet them. He glanced
around at his comrades, acknowledging in defeat that their numbers paled in
comparison to the vast army that comprised the battlefield unto the horizon. Distant drums pounded, resounding from the
enemy, intending to incite fear, but, with another glance around, he saw that
the soldiers surrounding were unfazed.
They were steel, forged in the fires of conflict. A call bellowed towards them in a language he
could not understand, and the massive army before them began to advance. Slowly at first, and then more quickly, until
advancing upon them was a tsunami of flesh and honed metal. Their war cries, a million echoes, were
deafening as they bounced in the canyon.
The ranks around Morgan tightened and braced for impact. In a moment of clarity, Morgan knew where he
must be. Knowledge rose unbidden to his
mind from history classes he had taken, and from his own interest in ancient
mythology.
Thermopylae. There could be no
other place. The legendary battle in
which 300 Spartan warriors stood against an invading Persian army a million
vast. Fear crept into his consciousness
as the invaders drew nearer. No more
than a hundred yards now. His small
force held their ground, soldiers of stone blocking passage. The pass they guarded would serve to funnel
the opposing force, rendering the bulk of their numbers useless in large scale
assault. Only the war of attrition to
come, the pitting of undisciplined, but fresh front-line fodder against the
progressively tiring Spartans would spell disaster.
With a resounding howl, an echoing clank of metal on metal, and the squelch
of splitting, punctured flesh, the two forces collided with tectonic
force. Morgan observed bewildered as
each rank braced the one before it to resist the Persian invasion. As he dug his left shoulder down to further
brace his large shield, his right arm lashed out over the heads of his comrades
to impale an unlucky foe. Quickly as he
had struck, he retracted his harpoon, sending flecks of gore and muscle tissue
to spatter his own face and the bodies of those before him. He roared, reveling in the glory of his first
kill of the battle. Despite the acrid
taste of adrenaline in his throat, Morgan felt, before he saw, blackness begin
to swallow his field of vision. Through
the progressively blackening haze, his weapon stabbed and lunged again and again,
scoring victim upon victim. Before long,
his vision faded completely, and he lapsed into unconsciousness, sung to sleep
by the raucous song of clashing swords, shields, and spears.
The emphatic honk of a car horn
returned Morgan Sinclair to reality. He
raised the lids he hadn’t known had been covering his eyes. They felt heavy, as though waking from a deep
sleep, and he found himself standing at the edge of the sidewalk, as though
preparing to cross the street, his hand clasped on the post of a street
light. He was, to a moderate degree,
confused as to the events that had just occurred. Morgan glanced around to see one person, a
young woman, walking away from him, but peering over her shoulder at him,
suspicious. Looking down, Morgan saw
that he was still dressed in hospital scrubs, the incessant shade of blue that
had dominated his existence for the past five days.
It had been two more days, after
his initial encounter with Lily, before the hospital had been confident enough
to release him. The doctor had scheduled
him to return in two weeks to check the progress of his healing. Lily, the fiery haired angel, had returned
each day subsequent to their meeting, partially, he knew, to check his
condition as per her duty, but also to converse with him casually and at
length. As his clothes had been left in
bloody rags from the events of his accident, they had returned his effects to
him and graced him with a pair of scrubs to wear. A reminder he could keep of his pleasant
times in the blue partition of the ward.
Pleasant, he thought with a mental laugh. What a joke. What he had not received upon his departure was the necklace Lily had relieved him of while he lay in his morphine induced stupor. But in Morgan’s mind, he had lost that sometime during the night of his attack. The doses of pain medication had been reduced during the length of his stay, now having dwindled to a Vicodin prescription held crumpled in Morgan’s pocket.
Pleasant, he thought with a mental laugh. What a joke. What he had not received upon his departure was the necklace Lily had relieved him of while he lay in his morphine induced stupor. But in Morgan’s mind, he had lost that sometime during the night of his attack. The doses of pain medication had been reduced during the length of his stay, now having dwindled to a Vicodin prescription held crumpled in Morgan’s pocket.
Beneath the overcast sky outside
the hospital door, Morgan inhaled deeply, falling in love with the air that
wasn’t tainted by the scent of cleaner.
Ironically, his first effort was to wriggle a mangled pack of Marlboro
Blend 27 cigarettes from the front pocket of his scrubs, and put one to his
lips.
“You know those things will kill
you.” The voice came from behind him, speaking both matter-of-factly, and
carrying a jovial tone. He turned and
glanced over his shoulder to see Lily approaching from several paces behind. He offered a short laugh and returned to
lighting his cigarette. After pausing to
take a drag, he answered.
“If I’m still alive by the time these things come back to haunt me, I clearly didn’t live epically enough.”
She grinned. “Fair enough.” Lily crossed the distance between them and stood beside Morgan, shoulder to shoulder.
“Thanks for helping maintain my sanity,” Morgan commented lightly.
“No problem,” she replied with another smile. “Waiting for someone to take you home?” He laughed wistfully.
“No, if I held my breath for someone to pick me up, I definitely wouldn’t need to worry about these cigarettes. I don’t live too far away.” He took another drag and exhaled slowly, sending streams of smoke spiraling from his nostrils. “I should get going, though. It is a bit of a walk.” She nodded and gave him a light embrace, the mark of a friendship having been forged during the extent of his hospitalization. He returned the embrace.
“If I’m still alive by the time these things come back to haunt me, I clearly didn’t live epically enough.”
She grinned. “Fair enough.” Lily crossed the distance between them and stood beside Morgan, shoulder to shoulder.
“Thanks for helping maintain my sanity,” Morgan commented lightly.
“No problem,” she replied with another smile. “Waiting for someone to take you home?” He laughed wistfully.
“No, if I held my breath for someone to pick me up, I definitely wouldn’t need to worry about these cigarettes. I don’t live too far away.” He took another drag and exhaled slowly, sending streams of smoke spiraling from his nostrils. “I should get going, though. It is a bit of a walk.” She nodded and gave him a light embrace, the mark of a friendship having been forged during the extent of his hospitalization. He returned the embrace.
“How about that dinner sometime
soon?” he asked. She pulled back to meet
his gaze.
“It’s against policy to date a patient,”
she replied with a half-smile. Her
message was clear enough as she pressed a piece of paper firmly into his palm
before releasing her hold.
“I suppose that means I should
heal quickly,” Morgan said as she turned to walk inside. Her only response was a furtive glance before
she was swallowed maw of the hospital that salivated disinfectant. He filed the piece of paper in his pocket
with his crumpled prescription, and began trudging along toward his little piece
of suburbia a couple miles to the north.
Due to the slight influence of the painkillers, the street before him
was sluggish to follow his gaze. The
only way Morgan could describe the town surrounding him was to say it was cute,
but it would be spoken mirthlessly and sans any fuzzy feelings the word
implied. Put plainly, it was
boring. Devoid of activity or
entertainment for the younger generation.
As he traversed the sidewalk, cars passed calmly by, weaving through the
latticework of streets between buildings, none of which were more than four
stories high.
Winter winds under a mottled
gray sky brought a chill to the air.
Dead leaves littered the streets, swirling in dervishes with each
passing vehicle. As he walked, he
checked his watch. The large face,
mounted on an even larger band, read 12:15 PM.
Approaching a busy intersection, he slouched against a nearby light
post.
The next thing he knew, he was
awoken by the emphatic honk of a car horn.
His eyelids were heavy as though awaking from a deep sleep. He looked around; finding himself still
perched up against the streetlight, subject to the curious, suspicious glance
of a young woman who had clearly walked past just moments before he came
to. Morgan glanced down at his
watch. It read 2:24 PM.
Holy shit, where had the time gone? His last memory before the intensely vivid dream episode was nearly two hours previous. Have I really been standing here for that long? Morgan stood confused for another moment, before bewilderedly wandering onward across the street. His mind’s eye was a cinema playing the dream—was it a dream?—on repeat. What had spawned such a sensory vividness within his mind, and of a topic so non-sequitur to his life?
Holy shit, where had the time gone? His last memory before the intensely vivid dream episode was nearly two hours previous. Have I really been standing here for that long? Morgan stood confused for another moment, before bewilderedly wandering onward across the street. His mind’s eye was a cinema playing the dream—was it a dream?—on repeat. What had spawned such a sensory vividness within his mind, and of a topic so non-sequitur to his life?
The rest of the walk passed
quickly as Morgan walked in a dissociated trance, lost in thought. Again and again, he played through the events
of his crash, the attack, and now the waking dream he had just experienced.
A half hour later, Morgan
reached the steps that led into his house.
The lights within were dim, the blinds drawn. He sighed as he turned the knob and crossed
the threshold, all too familiar with what he knew he would find inside. A narrow set of stairs yawned upwards before
him. Gray daylight filtered through the
closed blinds, illuminating the innards of the house in a mottled light,
robbing it of any hue. Morgan rambled up
the stairs to his room where he stripped out of the scrubs. The room was clean, fastidiously organized,
at the least. Posters of various musical
acts blanketed the walls. A large bookshelf
loomed in the shadowy corner, stuffed to capacity with books from various
genres. He grabbed a set of clothes;
dark jeans, a black t-shirt, and gray hoodie, from his closet, and meandered
into the bathroom.
Morgan leaned on the counter
over the sink, surveying himself in the mirror.
It was almost as though a different person was looking back at him. Having eaten little in his hospital stay, fed
fluids constantly through an intravenous drip, he had lost weight. His face was gaunt and hollow. Days of hygienic disregard had left a dusting
of thick facial hair covering his chin, neck, and cheeks. After turning the shower to a scalding hot
temperature, he shaved, the activity made awkward with only one good arm.
Fifteen minutes later, he
emerged from the bathroom, showered, dressed, and refreshed. Downstairs in the living room, he found what
he had come to accept as normal, but had never gotten particularly accustomed
to. His father sat in the middle of the
dark room, the only real light emanating from the television. The man had always had problems with
addiction, be it alcohol, cigarettes, or harder substances. Come to think of it, his mother had as well,
but she had excused herself from their lives several years prior in an attempt
to help herself. Morgan never knew what
she had run from, whether it was both of them, just his father, her addiction,
or other personal issues she had never confided in him. In retrospect, it should not have come as
much of a surprise at it had at the time, but at the tender age of thirteen,
losing a parent was a fairly inconceivable idea. Like most, Morgan had dealt with the
unreasonable feelings of guilt at her absence, and his father had only gotten
worse from there. Morgan had remained
blissfully unaware of the addiction hitherto her departure, but ignorance
became more and more difficult to maintain.
His father had been wrapped in the constrictor coils of addiction,
moving progressively downward in a spiral of increasingly potent
intoxicants. Formerly a respectable,
well-paid computer programmer, he had lost his job a year ago in the face of
his grief and substance abuse as he slipped from achieving his goals. Initially dismayed, Morgan had tried to find
help, find solace, but his stubborn father would not be reached. Before long, he had accepted it as
inevitable, and focused on maintaining his own quality of life in any way he
could. Fortunately the small suburban
house in which they resided had been paid off prior to the termination of his
dad’s employment. Life savings and
retirement funds had supported them for a while, but dwindled quickly in the
face of wanton spending on narcotics.
His father now, somehow, retained the presence of mind to apply for
welfare and unemployment, which Morgan was sure would soon be gone as
well. Groceries, the majority of which
were consumed by Morgan, were purchased by his low paying job as a night shift
stock manager at the local grocer.
The man, or the shell that was
left, sat hunched in the middle of the couch, half lidded eyes fixated on the
television screen. There was no telling
how long he had remained there, motionless.
Strapped loosely, forgotten, around his bicep was a length of rubber
tubing that acted as a tourniquet. On
the floor by his feet laid a lighter, and a discarded hypodermic needle. A large spoon, the handle bent around to be
easily held by a shaky hand, sat on the table, crystallized remnants of a
solution dusted the bowl of the utensil.
So it was heroin this week.
Morgan sighed. It was always something
different. He had seen transitions from
marijuana, to cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine, heroin, and even
methamphetamine. In all honesty, Morgan
was surprised the man was still alive.
He had attempted to enroll him in rehab, even call the cops, but the
stubborn, idiotic, man always managed to slip through the cracks, returning to
his oceanic trench of drugs and despair.
Morgan walked carefully into the
living room, into his father’s field of vision.
It was a pathetic sight. The
man’s skin was sallow, a yellowing pale in hue.
Sweat beaded his brow and unshaven upper lip. Stubble consumed his hollow cheeks and
chin. Long ago, Morgan had stopped
feeling guilt or sorrow for the man who had once been his father, now he felt
only pity and contempt. The man was slow
to acknowledge the presence of his son.
“Morgan,” finally came the
croaking whisper from his parched throat.
“Where have you been?” He spoke
slowly, as though it was a great effort to undertake.
“I’ve…I’ve been busy,” Morgan
responded. The man might have
acknowledged him with a barely perceptible nod, perhaps not. Either way, he had returned to his world of
demons and television, with nothing left to say. He had failed to notice the giant cast that
encompassed his son’s arm. Failed to notice
the bruises, the hospital bracelet.
Morgan sighed again and left the room, retreating to his bedroom. He was tired, exhausted; both in a mental and
physical sense, but as he laid on his bed—not bothering to pull back the tautly
drawn sheets—he knew sleep would not come to him. This was by no means an unusual
occurrence. Due to his graveyard work
shift, his sleep schedule was irregular at best. More often than not bordering on the
insomniac.
Again, images of his crash, of
his attack, flooded his mind. The
sensation of insanity crept further and further into his mind as he lay staring
at his ceiling, until he could bear it no more.
Morgan scooted off his bed, and
reached beneath it to withdraw a shoe box.
From inside he pulled a Heckler and Koch USP .45 handgun. A relic of his father’s that he had confiscated
and hid in lieu of his rare but dangerous drug induced rages. He pushed the full magazine into place,
checked to ensure the safety was on, and left a round unchambered, before
stuffing it into the back of his waistband.
It was past time to return to the site of his attack and verify his
sanity, or insanity.
A local bus dropped him across
town, where it would be a short walk to the edge of the forest. For the second time in less than as many
weeks, Morgan found himself tromping through the underbrush. Dead leaves crunched underfoot as he
searched. The musky odor of bark and
decaying foliage filled his nostrils.
The winter winds blew through the treetops scattering leaves, pinecones,
and small branches to litter the forest floor.
For two hours, Morgan’s endeavor
bore no fruit. The early sunset,
characteristic of the season, advanced quickly in the late afternoon. The deep orange of the sinking sun blazed
through the barren trees, casting long shadows across the ground which seemed
to yearn and grasp for Morgan like spindly fingers. Finally, and predominantly by sheer luck, he
discovered the gaping hole in the earth from which he had emerged the victor of
a life or death struggle. Painted in
hues of orange, red, and black, it looked like a bloodied maw; the wooden
boards that had once concealed it broken, like the jagged, rotten teeth of a
carnivore. Morgan gave a quick glance
over his shoulder to watch the golden-orange orb begin to sink below the
mountains in the distance. He gave an
involuntary shudder as a chill skittered the length of his spine. Fear, borne of memory, rose within him,
accompanied by the all too familiar bitterness of bile in his throat. His hand absently brushed the pistol in his
waistband before he calmed himself with a shake of his head and a few deep
breaths.
Into the pit he descended,
slowly, testing each decayed step before putting his full weight on it. He stepped gingerly onto the dirt floor. Since the roof had been forcibly opened,
nature had begun to consume the room and turn it into any other hole in the
ground. Leaves littered what had been a
cleanly swept stone floor. In the fading
daylight, the inside of the sanctum was nearly too dark to see. Morgan cursed himself silently for not having
the presence of mind to bring a flashlight.
He never would have imagined the search would take this long. Pausing a moment to let his vision adjust to
the darkness, a vague shape sparked his memory.
In hues of mottled black and blue, the form of a desk materialized. Atop the desk sat the form of a long unused
oil lantern. Perhaps it still worked. Morgan reached his hands out before him,
feeling his way forward. Suddenly, his
foot caught on something, invisible in the black, and he sprawled forward. The fall dealt him a glancing blow to the
forehead as he struck the leg of a chair.
Morgan swore. It hurt, but
undoubtedly was not a critical injury.
He slowly pushed himself to his feet, and spidered his hands across the
desk until he found the base of the lamp.
He seized it from the desk and scrounged in his pocket for the lighter
he always kept on his person. With a
flick of the flint, the small flame lit up the corner of the room. Morgan carefully opened the door to the
lantern, and set the feeble flame to the wick.
Mercifully, the fire took, the
lantern blazed to life; illuminating the small room, and casting harsh shadows. Now that he had light, his mind had begun to
wonder what he had tripped over, and answered the question even before he
turned to look. The wolf. The monster.
Whatever it had been. Morgan
slowly turned, and lowered the lantern to the floor. Indeed, there it was, the wolf-thing. It had injured him for the last time,
tripping him.
It was nothing like the creature
in his memories, from his nightmares. It
was not the giant beast with knives for canines, talon-like claws, cold
intelligence, and murderous intent. What
lay before him, however, was unusual. It
was a beast unlike any Morgan had, personally, seen before. The creature looked more like a normal,
pack-hunting, moon-howling wolf, if it had been fed from birth with
steroids. Morgan judged it based on his
scant knowledge of dogs, and saw it to be at least the size of the biggest
Newfoundland he had ever seen. Weighing
in at one-hundred-eighty, perhaps two hundred pounds, possibly more. It was coated head to foot in a long black
fur that was matted and missing in spots.
Even in death the beast looked mad, mad in both meanings, angry and
insane. Its mouth was agape, the fangs,
though not as terrifying as memories served, still stretched to the length of
Morgan’s longest finger. The eyes,
rolled partially back in their sockets, held large irises of a vibrant ice-blue. The light glinted off something silver in the
creature’s mouth. The knife. The curved blade that Morgan had slain the
wolf with. After a moment of hesitation,
Morgan reached uncertainly into its mouth and grasped the hilt to tear the
blade free. As the knife came out,
Morgan saw the flesh where the blade penetrated, had turned from a pinkish gray
to a cauterized, dead black. The flesh
had shriveled, as though burned.
Sufficiently perplexed and weirded out, Morgan’s curiosity was sated,
and he turned to leave back to whence he came.
For some reason, unbeknownst to
him, he stopped as he reached the ladder, and turned back to the room, holding
the lantern high. Beneath the desk, past
the overturned chair that had assaulted Morgan earlier, came a dull glint that
flickered with the light. Morgan’s brow
furled. He walked to the desk, making
sure to step over the body of the beast.
Crouching by the desk he placed the lantern down, and grew only more
confused at what he found.
A book. It was an old hand bound book with a leather
cover. The small button clasp on the
cover had glinted in the lantern light, its partially rusted surface still held
enough luster to shine. On the cover a
phrase was painstakingly engraved into the leather.
Be wary of what you wish,
Forever was never as desirable
As it was in my dreams.
Augustus Godfrey
Morgan raised an eyebrow and
glanced inside. The handmade paper was
covered in refined, handwritten script.
He placed the book under the crook of his arm and returned to the
ladder. He took a deep breath as he
broke ground, as though he had been held underwater. Above him, thick clouds roiled, and thunder
bellowed in the distance. Morgan turned
to look at the mysterious, underground domain for a last time, before he threw
the lantern back in, letting it shatter on the floor and ignite. The blaze began to spread as the oil leaked
out and spread across the floor.
Quickly, it reached the desk and chair and the fire began to devour the
small room. The desk, the dead body,
everything. Nobody should ever be subjected
to the nightmare Morgan had been through.
He would make sure of that. The
inevitable rain would quench the fire.
Hefting the book and sliding the
blade through his belt, Morgan turned and began his trek back home.