A World Long Since Dead

Chapter 8: A World Long Since Dead

“Greymen? In our world? I thought you said…”

“I know what I said! I don’t… I don’t understand how this is possible…”

The figure advanced, silently, but emanating malice with every step.

It slowly, as if with great effort, reached a gaunt, leathery, arm into the overcoat and removed a dull black-coated service pistol.

Jade aimed her revolver at the figure and fired.

A mess of torn fabric and the exposed down lining from inside the longcoat showed that she had scored a hit, but the figure still advanced, unceasing, failing to even register the bullet wound.

She fired again, and again, and then her weapon clicked empty.

The greyman raised it’s arm, and, holding the pistol in an awkward grip, as if not used to human hands, it pulled the trigger.

The first shot went wide, and then the second.

The third struck the pavement beside Jade’s feet with a loud crack.

She turned to him, and her face was a picture of anguish and fear. “Mason! It’s you they want, you have to get out of here! You can’t let them have the watch!”

Another bullet sliced through her leg and she fell hard to the concrete.

“Go Mason!” She screamed, and began to struggle with her revolver as the figure continued to advance.

It’s gurning smile remained, inhuman, but, it seemed, tinged with satisfaction?

Mason didn’t know why he did what he did next.

He had never been a brave man, but something in him compelled him to act.

Mason rushed toward Jade, his hands on the watch in his pocket, removing it at the last moment as he reached her.

Another gunshot sounded, but it was distant, almost like thunder before an advancing storm.

He embraced Jade, and held her, watch in his other hand and the figure now towering above them.

It lowered the pistol toward them and Mason could smell the stench of rotting flesh, decay, and cordite.

He squeezed the silver button on the watch as the greyman squeezed his trigger.

Pain clouded his senses for an instant, and then the world went white.

He felt like he was falling, then he felt nothing at all.

He heard a deafening silence and saw the brightest light, it was almost like his nerves had burnt out with the sheer overwhelming sensations that he was experiencing, and could not process anything more.

Then, gradually, he began to become aware of himself again.

Pain was first.

His hand, or was it his hand? Throbbed.

Then there was the cold. Mason felt as it he were lying on a slab of ice.

His vision returned.

It was dark here, but still a dull-grey twilight lit the world in front of him. It was a world of concrete and decay, a world that seemed cold, and long since dead.

Mason could hear nothing but the faint whistle of snow in the icy breeze.

He looked down, and saw blood pour from a wound to his hand, into a gathering crimson puddle on the snow-covered ground.

“Jade!”

Forgetting his injury, he whirled, searching frantically for his companion.

At his feet, beneath a thin veil of snow, he saw her.

He knelt, brushed the snow from her black leather jacket, and pulled the matted hair from her open mouth.

The moisture trickling from her lips reassured him that she was still alive, but he couldn’t rouse her.

Mason tore a strip off of his t-shirt, and wrapped it around his hand, stemming the flow of blood from his wound.

Then he did the same for Jade’s leg. Luckily, the bullet had just grazed her.

A golden glint of metal caught his eye.

“The Watch!” he exclaimed audibly.

The moment he touched the timepiece, his heart sank at the sound of broken glass and grating metal.

The face was shattered, the hands frozen in time, and when he turned it over, his suspicions were confirmed: A large bullet hole, still with some of the lead from the round, had formed a dent in the ancient metal housing of the watch.

The lead slug had passed through his hand and into the watch at the moment that he had activated it.

Mason now knew that the hunch that had occurred to him in a that moment of blind bravery was correct: Activating the watch while touching Jade had brought her with him, but, where were they?

Who knows what effect the watch shattering had had on it’s arcane inner workings. Where had they gone? Or When?

His senses finally returned, he looked around.

Jade and himself stood in the lee of a ruined building, it’s upper floors gone, and only three walls still standing, offering little protection against the biting cold.

There was nothing around him but grey, cold, stone.

He had to find help.

He took off his jacket and covered Jade with it, then, stepped into the gathering snowstorm.

It was daytime, he realised. He could see sunlight vainly attempting to penetrate dense cloud.

He could hear nothing but the faint rush of snowfall in heavy wind.

Even the snow was grey. Not just on the ground, but the fresh snow falling from the sky had a sickly pallor.

Mason felt a foreboding grow in the pit of his stomach.

There were no cars, no music, no people in this dead city.

Just grey concrete, rusted steel, and the cold.

He trudged through the deepening snow, and eventually found what seemed to be an old mall.

It’s open architecture still, somehow, seemed to welcome him despite it’s dilapidated state.

The first floor was a bust.

The windows were shattered, and the stock, or what was left of it, were beyond recognition, rotten completely by the encroaching elements.

Mace found the staircase, which was still intact, and proceeded upwards cautiously.

The second floor had mostly fallen through, giant gaping holes the size of entire rooms dissuaded him from even attempting to enter it.

On the third floor, he found what he was looking for.

There were dented cans of food strewn about amidst cracked tiles and fallen roofing panels.

Mason found a black canvas backpack beside a buckled and broken shopping cart, and began to fill it with the few cans that seemed to be in good shape, trying not to think about the bags owner.

Most of them were missing their labels, but they hadn’t bulged or rusted.

He pressed forward into the store, feeling the floor give almost imperceptibly beneath his feet.

He found some bandages in the remains of a first aid kit, and a box of plastic lighters strewn about behind the shops counter.

There was very little else of value, but Mason made a mental note to return here and search further, once he had checked on Jade.

Suddenly, a burst of static filled the air, and Mace felt his hair stand on end.

He heard a loud buzzing, and the stores few remaining intact florescent bulbs flickered with a dim incandescent glow.

Outside the broken windows, a white light appeared, and flashed through the store, one window at a time, as if searching.

Mason heard a voice but couldn’t understand what it was saying.

It took him a moment to realise that it was coming from within his own head.

Then Mace began to visualise images as the voice spoke, even though he still couldn’t understand the words.

It was like his own mind was being used for a macabre game of charades.

He understood the word “life” and then the word “energy” or was it… “fuel?” Mason couldn’t be sure, but he knew, instinctively he knew, that this… thing… was hunting him, and he ran.

Bounding down the stairs and out through the front door, which was, thankfully, on the opposite side to the light, Mason darted through side streets turned to rubble and alley ways of twisted metal.

It wasn’t following him.

He knew, because he couldn’t feel it’s presence, hear it’s voice, anymore.

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