Chapter 3

The Decomposed Strings

Cale struggled to his feet and violently recoiled as he came face to face with a black haired wolf-head. The creature yelled curses in Cale’s face and as if it was a reflect, he brought the handgun up and pulled the trigger. The wolf’s snout blew apart, the axe in its hand dropped, and its lifeless body quickly followed.

“What the hell?” Cale screamed in disgust and disbelief as he stared around the battlefield. He didn’t see a single German soldier in the fighting. The enemy that swarmed around them were creatures and humans of unimaginable shapes and colors. It couldn’t be real. Cale turned to Jacob, who was still firing away madly at anything that neared. “What are these things?”

“I don’t know,” Jacob yelled back over the noises happily. “But it’s sure as hell not a German weapon. I can tell you now that we’re nowhere near Berlin.” He gunned down a tall blue creature before slamming the butt of his rifle into a wolf’s blue-eyed face.

Cale noticed a small black tower amidst the battle, reflecting every light back across the bloody faces of the dead and living alike. A tall man stood on top of it with his head turned towards the sky. As Cale watched, the black sky above the tower began to stir, twirling into a slow moving funnel that slowly stretched downward towards the man on the tower.

Cale watched as the funnel approached the man, who reached up and grasped it—as if it was solid—and took a firm hold of it. As the tall man began to retract his outstretched arm, Cale saw that he gripped six different colored chords. One was yellow, one was black, one was dark brown, one was dark green, one was pure white, and the last was dark blue. They seemed to have originated in the sky and as the man slowly brought them closer to his chest, Cale could see them more clearly running on for endless miles in every direction in the black sky.

A medieval armored man collided with him and they both fell, taking the tower and the tall man away from Cale’s vision. The handgun found its mark again merely seconds before the sword found its own mark earning yet another relieved sigh from Cale.

He climbed to his feet in time to see a winged human’s spear pierce Jacob Pickens’s heart. The Allied soldier’s scream and curses filled the air as he dropped the rifle and fell to his knees. The handgun’s three booms released the bullets that exploded inside the winged man’s chest. He fell and Cale finally stopped his rage filled scream. It was too late; Captain Jacob Pickens was dead. The man who had become Cale’s friend in such a short amount of time was dead!

Turning to face the nightmarish battle again, Cale saw the last person he had ever expected to see. His heart leapt and as he started forward, he saw that she was heading towards him.

2

The spiked branch took out a tall blue man’s glassy eye and he fell screaming. Summer never slowed but cut the life of a winged man short with a single swing. She had never known she could fight so well but she was even closer to the hole now. The Allied soldiers had stopped coming through and now it stood motionless and alone among the six-way battle. She stopped in front of it and saw that a dimly lit forest lay on the other side. She decided to go through and take her chances somewhere besides where the battle was raging.

“I wouldn’t go through there if I was you,” a familiar voice said from behind her. She turned with a smile and lowered the spiked branch. “I came through there. Trust me Summer, you don’t want to go through.”

“Cale!” She yelled as she turned and threw her arms around him, suddenly unconscious of the hellish battle raging around her. “I’m so glad to see you! I thought I was alone during all this. What’s happening? How did you get here?”

Cale wrapped his arms around her and hugged back. “I don’t know what’s happening here. I think I got here through one of those gateways and I’m thinking you did too. I just want to know how to get home.” He loosened his grip and added, “I thought I was alone too. It’s good to see you too but I need to get you out of this battle. I need to get you to safety. I don’t want anything to happen to you. All right?”

“All right,” Summer agreed, “but I want you to get out of the battle as well.” Cale nodded instantly without any thought in the matter. Summer was still amazed that he was here. They were old friends and had been going to meet each other and a couple of others when this had all happened. To think that they were meeting under these circumstances was just unbelievable yet some how real.

Grisindale neared them, swinging his weapon at any foe. He was accompanied by two of his tribesmen as if they were bodyguards for their leader. “No!” Summer yelled as Cale raised the handgun towards the chief leader. She knocked his arm aside as he pulled back on the trigger, sending the bullet into the stirring sky overhead. “No, they’re with me. They’re protecting me!” Cale nodded and lowered the gun, muttering his apologizes.

“No need human,” Grisindale rumbled loudly, waving it aside immediately. He turned to Summer. “Summer, I know the cause of this plague upon our world. I believe the man on the tower is its cause. We need to kill him to restore order and beauty to our world.”

“I’ll do it Grisindale,” Summer said, nodding. “I’ll kill him.”

Chief Grisindale started his protest instantly. “No Summer, my tribe and I will take care of it...” Just as Cale started a protest of his own: “Summer you can’t! We need to get out of this battle! We don’t belong here!”

With a single swing of her spiked branch, Summer raised a hand to silence both of them. She was taking control over the situation once and for all. “No, I will do it! I promised to aid Grisindale in his battle and he has protected me this far! I will not run from this! I want to restore beauty to his world!”

“Very well,” Cale answered firmly, “but I’m coming with you.” He got no argument. Grisindale nodded and soon they were all running towards a closed door at the base of the marble tower.

Summer wasn’t surprised to find the door locked and secured. One forceful swing from Grisindale’s weapon took the door down. As it fell inward with a loud thud, Grisindale said, “I can’t come with you humans but I wish you best of luck. And I thank you both for this.” Both Cale and Summer nodded before entering.

They found the stairway—a spiral stairway constructed of black marble—almost immediately and started up it. Summer was surprised that it wasn’t slippery but surprisingly rough on their shoes. It wasn’t long before the stairs exited out onto the smooth wall- and ceiling-less platform. It looked as if they were standing on water; everything was reflected back up at them.

As soon as her eyes fell on the tall man occupying the center of the platform Summer screamed in fear more then anything else. She heard Cale’s whispered, “Dear God!” and didn’t feel too embarrassed.

Hellish was the only word to describe the horrific sight in front of her. It was frightening and enough to make her turn and flee. Only her mustered strength kept her where she was.

The tall man standing before them was clad in all black with his head turned towards the sky. Long black hair—was it streaked and stained with blood?—fell over his shoulders and the start of a black beard covered his face. Droplets of blood dripped from his face and small steady rivulets of blood coursed down his head and clothes. He stood in a puddle of blood that was his own.

The man’s left hand was wrapped around the six different colored chords that had emerged from the midnight dark sky. He was slowly pulling them downward. His right arm was downward and wrapped around a crimson red chord that was slowly emerging from the pool of blood around him. The man was having a visibly harder time pulling the red chord then the others.

What disturbed her most was the fact that the man’s shirt was open and his chest was split open revealing his beating heart for all to see. It beat steady but all six chords from the sky were driven into it and with each fresh beat, the chords sank deeper into his heart.

His stomach was sliced open, an arrow had pierced his right leg, up-stretched left arm, and chest, and bullet holes covered him. Each fresh wound bleed badly but the man paid no heed to it. It was as if he couldn’t feel any of it!

Everything became suddenly clear. Each chord represented a world—a dimension of earth—and this man, this creature was sucking the life out of them and into him. He wanted to strengthen himself by destroying life on every dimension. And one of those chords represented Grisindale’s worlds and the barren waste that they now battled in was a result of this thing’s plague upon the world. And the battle below was occurring because these people were fighting back. The crimson chord represented earth—her world—the only world not caught up in the conflict below and that was why it was harder for him to secure it. Six of the seven worlds were decaying and this man had to be stopped before he destroyed everything.

Cale raised the handgun and fried twice. Two new bloody holes entered the man’s already split chest but he didn’t so much as flinch. His hand never stopped its tug on the six chords overhead but he slowly brought his head down until he was looking at them levelly. Another scream escaped Summer’s mouth but she stayed her ground. The man’s left eye was wide and blood-shot but his right eye hung loosely on his cheek as if it had been partly clawed out. Cale gasped in disgust and slowly lowered the still smoking handgun.

The creature laughed loudly, revealing a mouthful of bloody gums and teeth. “I can’t be killed!” He inhaled deeply and smiled. “I feel no pain! I am a God to every dimension and gods can’t be killed!” His voice was a strained gurgle as if he was speaking through blood.

“No, you are no god!” Summer yelled back furiously. “You are a creature destroying people’s worlds! You’re destroying worlds for your own advancement!”

“So it may be,” the creature laughed merrily, “but in time you will all come to worship me! You will all bow to me in due time!” He never faltered as he feed the chords of the worlds into his exposed beating heart. And Summer noticed that the red chord was getting weaker and closer to his heart. And she knew that it would all be over once he got it. “And I will rid my worlds of opposing foes! Look,” he motioned towards the battle, “it has already begun!”

Summer looked over the edge of the platform and saw Grisindale fall to the earth with a gaping hole in his chest. His smoothed log fell from his grip and his large, gentle, puppy-dog eyes locked with Summer’s briefly, before he disappeared in the battle with his life gone.

“No!” Summer yelled sadly, turning to glare at the man standing before her. “You bastard! He never did anything wrong! He just wanted to protect his world!”

The man’s fury suddenly took over and he snapped back. “But he came against me! He was a foe and I killed him! If you will not bow then you will be buried for treason!”

“There are not your worlds,” Cale shouted, bringing the handgun up and pointing it at the man’s torn head. “And you will not have our world!”

“That will not work you foolish human!” The torn creature standing taller then life laughed happily. “I can not be killed by your pathetic mortal weapons!”

“No, but this might just do the trick,” Cale laughed back, moving the barrel upward and training it on the six chords, which were surging life into this creature against their wills.

As Cale pulled the trigger back, the man’s remaining red eye widened in fear and an unearthly scream of terror escaped his throat. The bullet collided with the chords, severing them all without missing a beat. The chords recoiled back into the sky and the man’s scream changed from fear to blinding pain. Cale smiled triumphantly and lowered the handgun.

The ground below the tower began to rumble and split with the sky mirroring its every act. The known world began to decay and fall in on itself and the other five worlds began to do the same things. The six dimensions began to implode and destroy themselves as the cores of the worlds—the six chords—had just been destroyed.

Having had his own strength just severed and destroyed, the man collapsed to his knees and began to decay while he still lived. Yet his grip on the crimson chord never loosened. “You will regret what you have done human!”

In her anger over what had happened to Grisindale and what had happened to her, Summer leaped forward and swung her weapon down, severing the crimson chord as well. With it out of his power, the man collapsed further and fully decayed, having no strength left inside him.

The six worlds imploded and everything on them was destroyed including time itself. The ground and sky rumbled and screamed in pain. Lights and fires erupted from it and storms emerged as the ground began to fall in on itself. The tower collapsed and both Cale and Summer plunged to an untimely death. Every creature in the barren waste had just perished.

3

The ground began to rumble, causing General Evans and Doctor Herlong to walk outside. “What’s happening?” General Evans asked but the scientist merely shrugged. It was all over.

Earth’s cities, landscapes, and complete form began to collapse in on themselves as if the ground was loosing its support. The earth’s core burned out and imploded. As Earth grew smaller and smaller, destroying itself like a violent tornado, screams rose as over a billion lives were snuffed out in a single instant.

4

The seven dimensions of earth were ripped apart and utterly destroyed in a single instant, wiping out all life as we know it but something else happened as well. As the worlds imploded—folding in on themselves—time was folded backwards as well. At the instant the worlds were destroyed, time connected with itself, as it had been before that creature had taken control, and merged; the parallel dimensions once again ran beside on another and continued as normal. It seemed as if the bridge of time had collapsed in a single spot and now it was once again whole as if nothing had happened. The creature was no more; he was erased from time and had never been. Life continued with no mergers of the worlds; memories had been utterly erased.

Afterwards

Cale Willing glanced down at the gas gauge on his 1982 dark yellow Mercedes station wagon (a turbo diesel at that!) and cursed under his breath for perhaps the hundredth time that night. The red needle was centered on the large E—for completely empty, a goddamn empty car—and had been centered on it for perhaps the last fifteen minutes. The large blinking red light that had indicated only ten more miles of gas remaining in the Mercedes had just flickered, flickered again, repeated, and then shut off completely.

“Damn it!” Cale shouted at the windshield as he stared out at the full moon covered, dark night surrounding him. Trees rose on either side of the road and the red full moon blinked between their barren winter branches, illuminating the gray road as the Mercedes started to coast down it at an increasingly decreasing speed. He realized he was in the middle of nowhere with no coverage on his cellular phone, only the high beams and the moon to light his way, and no gas to get anywhere. He hadn’t seen a building in two hours and didn’t expect to see one anytime soon.

Hitting the steering wheel three times, while still coasting at a slower speed, hearing the creaking noises of the black leather jacket he wore as he moved, Cale glanced to his right with tired, unbelieving, angry eyes and let his gaze fall upon a single-story yellow house with a matching yellow garage on the opposite side of the driveway. All the lights were off, all save the security light on the opposite side of the house, but it was still a building and someone might be home.

Cale turned the wheel and let the car drift into the driveway.

Buttoning up his coat, Cale pulled his cellular phone from his pocket and noticed that it had no coverage and hardly any battery power left. His car rested still and dark under an old oak perhaps fifty yards beyond the house and garage. In his blinded state, a state that he didn’t know how it happened, he had pulled too far up but maybe this was for the better. It was perhaps one in the morning and he didn’t want to disturb the occupants of the house so Cale opened the back door of the car, climbed in, stretched out on the backseat—a very comfortable back seat, he noted happily—and waited patiently for sleep to devour him. He would ask questions in the morning, ask for help, and possibly ask for a useable phone.

Cale’s eyes shot open at the sound of a wolf’s howl in the distance and was surprised to see night still lingering around him. He thought he had slept longer then that. Getting up and climbing out of the car, he glanced at his watch and saw that it said five in the morning. That meant the sun would be up in an hour or so but he couldn’t wait any longer. The people inside wouldn’t get too pissed if he bothered them now; at least he hoped not. They would be waking up soon anyway.

Cale walked to the oak, relieved himself, turned, and then started for the back porch of the house. The sliding door wasn’t covered with anything and when he knocked a couple times, no one appeared. He waited patiently and repeated his knock. Right as he was about to turn and leave for the backseat of his car again, a light came on and Cale smiled happily as an elderly couple soon appeared at the sliding door.

“I’m sorry to bother you but I ran out of gas and my cellular phone isn’t working,” Cale started as politely as he could manage with the smile still on his face. “I’m really sorry about waking you. It’s just that I’m supposed to meet a couple friends of mine, who I haven’t seen in a long while, and I don’t want to miss it. You wouldn’t happen to have any extra diesel or a phone I could use, would you?”

“Ah, don’t worry about waking us son,” the older man answered, returning Cale’s smile as he pulled his robe and slippers on. “Yeah, I have some diesel you can use. I wouldn’t want you to miss meeting your friends. I’m more then glad to help out.” He opened the door and motioned for Cale to follow him down the porch and towards the garage. “Don’t worry about it. We were about to wake up anytime now anyway.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate this.” The man waved it away.

He opened the garage and Cale saw a Dodge pickup truck inside but at first glance, he had thought it was something else but he guessed it was just a case of déjà vu or extreme tiredness. The man retrieved a tank of diesel (apparently for his tractor) and gave it to Cale. “Now, if you head that way,” the old man started as Cale got behind the steering wheel of the Mercedes, pointing in the direction that Cale had been going, “you’ll see a gas station no more then fifteen miles ahead. You can get a full tank of diesel there.”

“Thank you again,” Cale said, taking out his wallet but the man pushed it aside. “I really appreciate this more then you know.”

“Don’t worry about it son, I’m just glad I could help. I hope you see your friends and enjoy yourself.”

“Thank you.” Cale turned the ignition and was soon heading down the road in the direction of the gas station. Needless to say, Cale Willing made it to see his friends and did indeed get caught up with everything that had happened over the time that they hadn’t seen each other.

2

Summer Tillman jerked the steering wheel of the black Lexus hard to the right as the first deer leaped out in front of her. She avoided the creature but her high beams were soon trained on the dark trees off the right side of the road as both her feet slammed down on the brake in a single frantic movement. The Lexus jutted and finally jerked to a halt; it was laid out across both lanes of the back road.

She was going to meet a couple friends of hers—friends who see hadn’t seen in a long while—and she didn’t want to die before she saw them again. Luckily, she was all right and well alive. Her heart throbbed in her chest and her body began to shake as an unsteady calmness washed over her again.

It wasn’t long before she had the car back in drive and heading down the dark back road, at a much slower pace. She made it on time and saw her friends. They had a lot to catch up on but she still couldn’t believe how close she had come to actually dying the night before. But all in all, everything was all right. Cale took her out for a nice relaxing dinner where they caught up on old times and exchanged many a good laugh.