Seventy Miles of Darkness

The stars disappeared somewhere south of Scott City. Donald “Dutch” Waterman did not notice immediately. There was no reason he should have. He had driven US-83 enough times that most of western Kansas had become something he experienced without consciously seeing. Highway. Fields. Grain elevators. Center pivots. Farmhouses separated by miles of nothing. Towns announced by lights long before you reached them and forgotten almost as quickly after you left.

               At 1:47am, Dutch was mostly thinking about coffee. His thermos was empty. Garden City was ahead. Home was beyond that. He had spent 11 hours hauling refrigerated beef and wanted three things in approximately this order: a shower, his bed, and his wife. The dashboard said Garden City was 70 miles away. Dutch yawned. He glanced through the windshield. Nothing. Then looked again. Nothing.

               That was when he noticed the stars. Or rather, their absence. Western Kansas had stars. An obscene number of them. On a clear night, the sky looked less like darkness with lights in it and more like light somebody had spilled darkness across. Tonight there was simply black. Dutch leaned toward the windshield. "Clouds?" The weather had been clear. He checked his mirrors. The highway behind him was empty. No farm lights. That was strange too. He looked ahead. Nothing except the twin cones of his headlights. "Okay." He glanced at the GPS.

               GARDEN CITY — 70 MI

               Five minutes later:

               GARDEN CITY — 70 MI

               Dutch frowned. "That's not fucking good." He tapped the screen. The map showed his truck moving. The mileage did not change. He checked the odometer. Working. He had traveled six miles. Garden City remained 70 miles away. Then the CB radio turned on. Dutch had not used it in months. Static filled the cab. He reached for the volume. A voice said:

               "Choose your party."

               Dutch stared at the radio. "What?" Static. Then:

               "Choose your party."

               "Yeah. No." He switched it off. The radio remained on.

               "Choose your party."

               Dutch unplugged it. The voice continued.

               "Choose your party."

               He grabbed the microphone. "Choose deez nuts." Silence. Dutch smiled despite himself. "Thought so."Something moved behind him. Dutch screamed. A man was sitting on his bunk. Not climbed onto it. Not crawling through a window. Sitting there. He wore battered silver armor covered in dried blood. A sword lay across his knees. Dutch jerked the wheel. The semi crossed the centerline. He corrected. "What the fuck!"

               The armored man looked around the cab. His expression was equally horrified. Then someone appeared in the passenger seat. A girl. Maybe 12. She wore a dark blue robe covered in silver embroidery. Her hair was white. Not blond. White. She looked at Dutch. Then at the dashboard. Then screamed. A third voice came from behind him. "Oh, stop."

               Dutch looked into the mirror. An old woman stood beside the bunk. She was tiny. Maybe five feet tall. Her gray hair hung nearly to her waist. She wore black leather armor. In her right hand was a sword. The blade was made from human vertebrae. Actual vertebrae. Dutch knew enough anatomy to recognize them. They had been fused together into a serrated length of bone. The old woman looked through the windshield. "Keep moving."

               Dutch stared. "Who the fuck are you?"

               "The people keeping you alive."

               "Get out of my truck."

               The girl touched the dashboard. Lights flickered beneath her fingers. "Artificial stars."

               "Don't touch that."

               She touched the air-conditioning vent. Cold air blew across her face. Her eyes widened. "You command winter."

               "I command Freightliner."

               The armored man whispered something. The girl translated. "The Iron Beast."

               Dutch looked at her. "What?"

               The old woman sighed. "He thinks this is the Iron Beast."

               "What Iron Beast?"

               She pointed through the windshield. "The one the prophecy said would come."

               Dutch looked at the endless darkness ahead. Then at his GPS.

               70 MI

               "Of fucking course."

               The knight's name was Garran. The girl was Ilyra. The old woman called herself Mother Senn. Dutch decided immediately that he disliked Mother Senn. She had the relaxed manner of somebody who had killed enough people that killing one more would barely interrupt her afternoon. Garran was dying. A spear wound penetrated his abdomen beneath the breastplate. Dutch understood that much without translation. Ilyra pressed glowing hands against the wound periodically, but each time she did, blood ran from her nose.

               "Hospital," Dutch said. "Garden City. Seventy miles."

               Mother Senn laughed. "What?"

               "There is no Garden City."

               "Yeah, there fucking is."

               "Not anymore."

               Dutch pointed at the GPS. "Right there."

               Mother Senn studied the screen. Her expression changed. "What is that symbol?"

               "Garden City."

               "No."

               "Lady, I live there."

               "No." She reached into a pouch. Pulled out parchment. Unfolded it across the center console. Dutch almost told her not to block his cupholder. Then he saw the map. Kansas. Not approximately. Kansas. The rectangular shape was unmistakable. Rivers corresponded. Roads did not. Cities were replaced by symbols. Dutch recognized Scott City. Or where it should have been. A ruined tower occupied the location. He traced south. Garden City. There was no city. A black crown had been drawn there. Beneath it were words he could not read.

               Ilyra whispered: "The Throne of the Devourer." Dutch laughed. Nobody else did.

               At 60 miles remaining, the first thing attacked. The GPS still said 70. Dutch knew they had traveled 10. Something entered his headlights from the wheat field. At first he thought deer. Then it stood. Its body was shaped roughly like a man, but its arms reached the pavement while it stood upright. Skin stretched tightly over a skeletal frame. No face. Just teeth. Hundreds. It ran toward the truck. Dutch did what 30 years of driving had trained him not to do.

               He accelerated. The creature struck the grille. The impact shook the cab. Ilyra screamed. Dutch felt the tires pass over something. Then another creature appeared. Then six. Then 20. They poured from the fields. "Keep moving!" Mother Senn shouted.

               "That was already the fucking plan!" Garran forced himself upright. He opened the passenger window. Dutch yelled: "What are you doing?" The knight leaned out with his sword. A creature jumped. Garran decapitated it. Black blood sprayed across the door. Dutch stared. "Okay." Another leaped onto the hood. Ilyra raised both hands. Blue light exploded from her palms. The creature froze solid. Dutch hit the brakes just enough to send it sliding beneath the truck. He looked at her. "You can do that?"

               She wiped blood from her nose. "Sometimes."

               "Do it more."

               At 52 miles, they reached a grain elevator. Except it was not a grain elevator anymore. A black tower rose beside the highway. Bodies hung from its upper levels. Hundreds. Wind moved them gently. Dutch knew this place. He had passed the actual elevator countless times. Mother Senn stared upward. "The Citadel of Hunger."

               "That's a grain elevator."

               "It hasn't been that for 900 years."

               "It was that yesterday."

               She looked at him. "Not our yesterday." That shut him up.

               At 44 miles, they found the rest area. Dutch knew there was no rest area here. Yet a blue highway sign appeared.

               REST AREA — 1 MILE

               "Do not stop," Mother Senn said.

               "I need to piss."

               "You'll piss while moving."

               "That's not happening."

               "Then piss in your trousers."

               "Absolutely not."

               The rest area appeared. One building. Dark. Beside it stood a crystal taller than Dutch. Blue light flickered weakly inside. Ilyra gasped. "A sanctuary."

               Mother Senn said: "Was."

               Dutch pulled in. The truck stopped. Silence. The darkness beyond his headlights seemed solid. He climbed down. Mother Senn followed. "Five minutes." Dutch walked toward the restroom. Then saw the bodies. Four. A knight. A mage. An archer. Something that looked human except for horns curling from its forehead. All arranged around the crystal. Not fallen. Arranged. Kneeling. Their heads had been removed. Each head sat neatly in its owner's lap. Dutch stopped. Mother Senn stood beside him. "Last party."

               "What happened?"

               "They saved here."

                Dutch looked at her. "What does that mean?"

               Mother Senn stared at the crystal. "Something learned to wait for them." The crystal flickered. Words appeared inside.

               RECORD PROGRESS?

               Dutch backed away. "Nope."

               For once, Mother Senn smiled. "I am beginning to like you."

               At 36 miles, the wind turbines appeared. Hundreds stretched across the horizon. Except the blades were not blades. They were wheels. Each enormous wheel turned slowly. Bodies were bound around their rims. Thousands of people rotating through the darkness. Dutch stopped looking. At 28 miles, he began remembering things. A woman screaming. A castle burning. His hands covered in blood. He blinked. Gone. Then another. A child kneeling before him. Dutch holding a sword. Not Dutch. Someone wearing his face. He gripped the steering wheel. "What's happening?" Nobody answered. He looked at Mother Senn. She was watching him. "You know."

               "No."

               "You fucking know."

               Ilyra whispered: "Dutch."

               It was the first time she had used his name. "How do you know my name?"

               The girl began crying. Garran lowered his head. Mother Senn drew the vertebral sword. Dutch stared at it. "Oh, fuck you."

               They told him. Their world had been dying for three centuries. Not from plague. Not famine. Him. The Devourer had appeared at the Throne of Ash and conquered everything east of the Broken Sea. Cities burned. Kings were skinned. Children disappeared into temples where something beneath the earth ate their dreams. Millions died. Finally, the surviving mages discovered something. The Devourer had not been born in their world. He had been born somewhere else.

               Somewhen else. A place called Kansas. A city called Garden. A man named:

               Dutch Waterman.

               Dutch laughed. Then punched Mother Senn in the mouth. She barely moved. "You dragged me into this?"

               "We came to kill you."

               "Then why haven't you?"

               Ilyra sobbed. "Because you're not him."

               Dutch looked at her. Mother Senn wiped blood from her lip. "Not yet."

               At 18 miles, Dutch saw Garden City's lights. Normal lights. Home. The GPS changed.

               18 MI

               The stars returned one at a time. Dutch nearly cried. "That's it."

               Mother Senn stood. "Stop the vehicle."

               "No."

               "Dutch."

               "No." Garran drew his sword. Dutch reached beneath his seat. The tire iron was not a sword. It was enough. "You try anything, we're going to find out how medieval armor handles 70 miles an hour." Garran hesitated. Ilyra shouted something. Mother Senn answered. They argued. Dutch caught one word repeatedly.

               Devourer.

               Then Mother Senn lunged. The truck left the highway. Dutch remembered screaming. Glass breaking. Ilyra throwing blue fire. Garran grabbing the wheel. Mother Senn's bone sword cutting through the seat beside Dutch's ribs. Then wheat. The semi tore through a field. The trailer jackknifed. Metal screamed. Everything turned sideways. Then black.

               Dutch woke at dawn. Kansas had returned. Real Kansas. Blue sky. Fields. A ruined semi lying on its side. He crawled through the windshield. No Garran. No Ilyra. No Mother Senn. No monsters. No black towers. Just emergency vehicles approaching in the distance. Dutch laughed. He laughed until it hurt.

               His wife did not answer the phone. That bothered him. Then frightened him. Then terrified him. The hospital released him that afternoon with stitches above his eyebrow and instructions he ignored. A state trooper drove him home. Dutch saw the front door immediately. Open. Police tape. He stopped breathing. "What happened?"

               The trooper looked confused. "You haven't been told?" Dutch ran. Inside, the house was destroyed. Not robbed. Destroyed. Walls blackened. Furniture overturned. Symbols burned into the floor. His wife's blood covered the kitchen. They had not found her body. Only blood. Enough that nobody expected to. Dutch stood in the kitchen. Something lay on the floor. The trooper did not react to it. Could not see it. A sword. Made from human vertebrae. Dutch approached. Mother Senn's sword. Beside it lay parchment. One sentence.

               THE DEVOURER MUST HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO LOVE.

               Dutch understood. Not prophecy. Not destiny. Cause and effect. They had not traveled backward to prevent the Devourer. They had traveled backward and created him. Something inside Dutch broke. Not loudly. No scream. No dramatic collapse. Just a final little piece of whatever had connected him to the world.

               He picked up the sword. The vertebrae moved beneath his fingers. They aligned themselves. Recognized him. Far away, thunder rolled across a cloudless Kansas sky. Dutch looked toward Garden City. For half a second, the buildings disappeared. In their place stood a black fortress.

               The Throne of the Devourer.

               Then it was gone. Dutch looked at the blood on his kitchen floor. "I'll find you." He did not know whether he meant his wife. Mother Senn. Garran. Ilyra. Or all of them. The sword pulsed in his hand. Somewhere beyond Kansas, beyond time, beyond the last place any sane man would have called reality, words appeared across a darkened sky.

               DUTCH WATERMAN HAS ACQUIRED THE BLADE OF SORROWS.

               A second message followed.

               CLASS UNLOCKED: DEVOURER.

               And then, after 300 years of waiting:

               THE DEVOURER HAS JOINED THE PARTY.