SECTION 13
Half-walking, half-running, sleeping in fifteen-minute snatches, we come before dawn to the Black Road. We see it as we reach the top of a steep, grassy hill, and together we watch as the moonlight gleams off it. It is a thing of both beauty and terror, and each of us in turn feels for it the deepest reverence and the deepest loathing. Black, straight, and hypnotizing, it runs forever to the east and to the west.
West we’ve decided to go, and westwards we now turn our eyes. One glance is all it takes to make us wish we were heading east instead. Where the east has some semblance of green, the west very quickly becomes brown. Where it is not brown, it is closer to black.
I have never before encountered a truly bleak landscape. I feel that by the time the day is out, I will understand entirely what bleak means. It’s not an understanding I honestly want.
We begin our march with our eyes downcast, even though none of us thinks we have made the wrong choice. The day dawns hot. Sticky, humid air eats into our nostrils and covers our necks with a thin film of sweat and dirt. Mosquitoes make their final stand in whatever cool remains, before retreating to make a determined onslaught tonight. Ahead of us, the cicadas screech ominously. Behind us, an army marches to the sound of a bellowing trumpet.
To our left now, the Black Road keeps what seems a perfectly straight path. Beside it no grass grows, but we are far enough from it to walk in sickly, but living, fields. Throughout the march we see no living creature, not even a lowly field mouse. Whatever once lived here does so no longer.
Like a magnet, the Black Road draws us closer. Within an hour we are less than twenty yards away from it, and each step to the west seems to take us another inch or so to the south. Tempted as I am to look at the road, though, I manage to keep my eyes focused on the west. Nothing tempts me there.
Suddenly I hear a gasp, a choked cry. Whirling around, I see McManus’s frightened eyes staring to where his right hand points. The Black Road. Turning towards it, I understand why he is afraid.
In the center of the Black Road, atop what seems to be a footprint, a huge snake stands like a cobra, its eyes raking across us as we walk. For a second, we stand frozen, the pounding of our hearts the only sound we hear. The snake is ugly. It is also fascinating. Green and deep black, the circles on its body seem to shimmer in the hot morning sun. The shimmer grows stronger, and the circles begin to whirl. Tired and hot, I cannot tear my eyes from it.
I take one step towards it. Then a second. And now a third. Then I feel something shatter my lungs as I feel myself fall hard to the ground. My mouth tastes dirt that is bitter and burnt as I feel my face being slapped. When I open my eyes, I see the face of Tom Samuelson looking at me from only a foot away. He is lying on top of me while two of the others pin my arms.
“I’m all right,” I whisper, my voice hoarse with the taste of the dirt. “I’m fine. Just let me catch my breath.” None of them moves as I drink in the hot, thick air. “Now, off!” I order. “Let me get to my feet.”
“Not yet, Derek,” Tom’s voice insists. “First, we have to drag you away from here. I don’t think it’s safe yet.”
“Drag me away from where? Where am I?”
Tom hesitates, then speaks. “About ten feet from the Black Road. Another couple seconds and you would have been on it. We got to you just in time.”
I shake my head, but it won’t clear. “What happened?” I mutter, not sure if I really want to know.
“You were hypnotized,” Stan McManus pipes in. “Just like I was, until Tom kicked the hell out of me. That was some snake, huh?”
I think about this for a second, and something doesn’t seem quite right. “Why was I hypnotized, and you, but not Tom here? What’s he got that we haven’t got?” Knowing this could be a touchy question, I try to make it sound as humorous as possible.
“That’s not important,” Tom evades. “Let’s just say that I knew a bit better what to expect. I’ve seen the Black Road before, Derek, and I didn’t like it any better then than I do now.” He pauses. “Now, are you okay? Can we drag you away from here?” At my nod, he does so.
When they finally release me, I sit up and look at my hands. The backs of both of them are burned. Not a lot, but enough to give me pain. Tom digs down into the ground and retrieves some mud to act as a salve. The mud is cool, but it stinks. Hot and thirsty, I take a small drink from the container I laughingly call a canteen, a container made of boiled leather, and I rise to continue our march. The one thing we don’t want, I decide, is to have the army find us. They’d not likely be sympathetic.
The rest of the morning is uneventful, as is most of the afternoon. The only event, and this is hardly important, is the enormity of the heat. Late in the morning the sound of the hot days of an early August day in Toronto give way to the silence of a blistering day the likes of which I know only from movies set in the desert, and by early afternoon our progress has almost come to a halt. We are nearly sick with the heat, sick with a hunger we don’t even want to abate, sick with a thirst we can’t even describe. Not knowing where we might find more water, we are especially loathe to drink. The only one of us who keeps marching straight ahead, although even he appears bedraggled and worn, is good old Tom. I’m beginning to wonder about him.
Late in the afternoon, with the sun partway down to our right but still as hot as before, we stumble to the top of a small knoll. To a man we fall to our faces when we reach the crest, exhausted with the effort of forcing ourselves away from the magnetic road. Not intending to sleep, we soon find our eyes closing by themselves as the sun beats mercilessly down upon us. Colors stream through my brain as sweat bathes my face, and suddenly in that split-second transition between waking and sleep I hear the voices.
Ugly they are, raspy and threatening, loud and malicious in their cruel and meaningless laughter. I cannot understand their speech, but it sounds so loathsome that even if it were taught to me, I would instantly block it from my mind. For a moment, though, it is horrible without being horrifying. Only with a mind-piercing howl, the sound to which we all leap to our feet, do the voices suddenly become possessed of evil. And that evil is directed towards us.
From out of the Black Road they come, six hideous figures bearing swords that burn with black flame and spiked shields that drip with black poison. All of them are coal-black, with bald heads and thick arms and legs. The smallest is six feet tall and broadly built, the muscles on his chest and shoulders rippling with energy and wet with sweat. They walk towards us out of the haze of the unrelenting sun, our minds tired and weary, our muscles sore and needing sleep. And as the hot breeze blows softly from behind them, it brings with it a smell as foul and as noisome as anything I could ever have imagined. The creatures reek. Oh, God, how they reek.
And we are tired. So tired. So goddamned hot and tired.
As the creatures charge at us, their swords drawn and their teeth bared, I realize we have two choices. We can fight or we can surrender. There is no time to run.
If Derek decides to fight, turn to Section 20.
If he decides to surrender to the creatures, turn to Section 26.