I

The Earth trembled as if burdened by a sudden mass too large to be held upon its shoulders. A great trumpeting sounded forth from the forest midst as balls of fire were slung away from the tree line to collide against the city walls, setting them ablaze and blinding the archers who defended them. A mighty flood of clanking armor and ferocious cries was loosed from the underbrush and advanced towards the city gates as if directed by an invisible yet inexorable force. The soldiers poured over the measly front lines and squashed the secondary forces that were guarding the still-open drawbridge.

The first of their adversaries vanquished, the soldiers continued through the city’s entrance, shutting the barred gate behind them. The seemingly invincible battalion stormed forward into the parade grounds and stopped, as there were no forces to oppose them. A soldier looked up and screamed, not out of horror but out of the sudden realization of the inevitability of his fate. His chest instantly became a pincushion of arrows as the city’s archers began to fire down onto the soldiers.

Upon his mount in the forest, Lord Julius Antony heard the tortured screams coming from Momes. He raised then forcefully dropped his right arm, signaling the advance of the larger mass of his army. His mighty siege engines once again began to hurl crock upon crock of ‘Greek Fire’ at the city as engineers hurried from their hiding places to assemble ballistas and trebuchets along the siege lines.

Inside the city, Antony’s remaining soldiers had fought their way into the castle and had thoroughly entrenched themselves within and around its keep. Nearly half had fallen from the archers’ accurate shots, and half of the survivors had fallen to another evil, but an expected and welcomed fate; two days prior to the assault, the battalion had been separated from the remainder of the army and infected with plague out of hopes that it would shorten the coming siege.

King Marcus Packard looked out a slit in the wall of his tower apartment and saw the thickening circle of Antony’s forces. He sighed out of ignorance of Antony’s plan, in expectance of the insetting of a long siege. He went back to his chest of drawers and sighed once more. He was aware of the fact that Antony’s forces were greater than his own and knew that he would be tortured and executed as soon as his army had fallen. He removed his dagger from its sheath on his belt and placed it within the folds of cloth upon his chest. Read the rest of this story »

Richard was furious. Alan had lied to him. The next time he saw Alan, he knew he’d kill him. Wait. Richard stopped and analyzed that last thought. It wasn’t his. IT was roaming more freely now, pulling against ITs weakening chains and trying to assert control. Richard’s momentary lapse into anger gave IT just what IT needed to rear ITs ugly head and plant the murderous thought.

Richard was angry, true, but he didn’t want to kill his friend. Alan had been the only one to believe him. The only one who really understood what was going on in Richard’s head. To kill Alan would be to lose himself to IT. To give himself over to the pure animal rage that fueled ITs bloodlust.

No, Richard didn’t want to kill Alan, but he certainly was upset with him.

Richard cleared the office as quickly as he could. It was easy. There were three guards in the room, one watching security feeds, the other two playing cards in the back. Richard walked in the room and reached out into their minds. It was easy enough, no one’s thoughts were very guarded. He placed a thought in the back of their minds, small, like a seed.

Then he pushed on the rest of their minds, making the seeded thought grow until it became their own. Suddenly, all three needed to use the bathroom. It was the sudden, urgent need that comes after eating too many chili dogs or drinking too much during a football game. The three guards forgot themselves, given over to pure biological necessity, and fought their way out of the room.

Richard smiled and locked the door behind them. He had the office to himself. Free to search the computer for mention of Cari’s name and location. He sat down at the computer and hit the space bar a few times to wake it up. Then he started his search, the old-fashioned way. Read the rest of this story »

Richard’s mind was in turmoil. He wanted to find Cari to kill her for what she’d done to his wife. John wanted to find her to be reunited with his lover. IT wanted to find ITs master and share the fruits of ITs labor.

That was the hardest part for Richard to reconcile. He knew the consuming darkness from which IT was born. Yet to think that IT had a master. That IT had a superior. That IT was not the darkest thing in existence. It scared Richard to his very core. It shook his foundation and threatened to throw open the gates with which IT was bound in the back of his mind.

For whatever the reason, he knew he had to find Cari. He knew he had to kill her before IT realized what was happening and wrestled control away from him. The dark kinship that existed between IT and Cari was too frightening to think about and to see it in reality would drive anyone else mad.

Richard turned his mind towards the prison in Oregon and, though the power of his mind’s eye, began searching through the general population for Cari. He reached out and latched on to the Records with all his strength and let its power course through his mind, making him real enough in Oregon to walk through the halls and see what was going on, but not real enough that anyone there would notice. No, it wasn’t time for him to be there. Not just yet.

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