id: 740
name: KANE
author: MONGO
date: 1st July 2022
text len: 26362
views: 60

He had been a firefighter. Before budget cuts. Before the town got smaller. The truck was having difficulties, spitting and growling on the inferior, month old gas. Not too much farther now; he could see where the rift lanced the sky. He heard the whirring as cars crossed the border, and could smell ozone.
His mind was dragged back five years; downtown, near the trees. They’d been out there for days, battling for houses and time and scraps of land. He had been digging ditches when a wind came up, and he found himself on the hose; the fire came, hungry, and he could feel it grabbing the oxygen from his breath. He remembered the heat, and the sweat drying from his skin in the face of the inferno. The hose hissed, a jet of water turning into steam almost the second it left the nozzle.
The portal did that, when they crossed it. It sucked the air from his lungs. Like a kid hit in the chest with a soccer ball it took a few seconds for him to start breathing again. 
“You all right, Kane?”
His girl, far more used to this than he was, drove. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Keep your eyes on the road.” 
“It ain’t that easy, darlin. You’re too cute not to look at.”
“I don’t believe it. You’re prettier than I am and I don’t drive crazy.”
“Oh, stop,” she giggled. “This is fun!”
Maybe when you’re behind the wheel, he thought. The road was starting to break down. 
An hour later and they were in a grim little town thirty miles away and he had never been more out of his element in his life. He’d shot guns, he’d gone camping, sure, but nothing like this. It started when they set foot in the store. 
“Kane, this is chuck. He’s a friend of mine, gonna take us with him.
“Where are we going?”
Chuck answered, a smaller, silver haired gremlin with a permanent scowl. “We’re going in the woods and killing things.” 
“Don’t scare him off,” she interjected. “It was hard enough getting him to come along.” 
“You prepped him?”
“He’s shot a gun before. Don’t worry about it.”
Chuck shook his head and led them deeper inside.
They passed empty shelves; they were taken to a back room.
Laid out on several tables were the meager contents of the store. Potions, tomes, armor, guns, ammo, more guns, vests, plate carriers… “You were talking about pests or something, Linda, but it feels more like we’re going to war,” Kane joked. 
Chuck was angry. “We are going to war.”
“But-”
“Unless you want her to take you back start packing. We leave as soon as we can.” He glared at Linda. “I said I needed help, not some random Earthsider.”
She designed not to answer, pulling Kane back to the front of the store and whispering. “Kane, I’m sorry, I really am, but rents due in two days-”
“What the fuck,” He growled, coming to a stop. “What the fuck. We didn’t talk about this! You said-”
“I know what I said,” She interjected, with an edge to her voice. “We’re out of money, Kane. You’re unemployed, I’m unemployed, my whole fuckin families unemployed. There’s nothing else to do.”
“And this was your best idea? Really?”
“I- it pays well. Really well.
“We’re not soldiers! We’re not mercenaries! What were you thinking?”
“Maybe you’ve never shot at someone before-”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that was expected of me-”
“Fine! Fine. Go sit at home. Just don’t expect me to wait around for the bills.” 
She pushed him away, and started crying, and pulled him close again. “I can’t do this alone, Kane, please, Kane-”
“Hush,” he said, hugging her. “You’re right. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”
They crept back into the room and started grimly appropriating gear.
“I hope you weren’t lying about your skills too, we’re up against a shaman,” Chuck said, loading a magazine with 7.62. 
“I wasn’t,” she said, taking out her tome, leafing through it. “I’m in good shape.” She shut the book. “Some wannabe wizard shouldn’t be a problem.”
Kane snorted. “The ground squirrels were a problem, remember those?”
“I was approaching it all wrong at first. Too safe.”
“Too safe? When you reached for something bigger you almost burned the house down.”
“I’ve got a better grip on it now.”
Chuck’s eyes bugged out of his head but he said nothing.
The owner of the store walked in, ruddy, round, thankful.
“They’ve been attacking the caravans,” he said. “Nothing could get through, I’m sorry I don’t have any other guns… Thank you. Anytime you need a place to stay, or supplies, or-”
“Thank us after we’re through with it,” Chuck grimaced. “This won’t be easy.”
Three hours later, They had what they wanted -more like what Chuck said was needed- and they walked out of town and into the woods just as the sun set. They communicated in gestures, and crept through the snowy woodland.
They kept out of sight and to the right of the road, moving from cover to cover; Kane just did what Chuck did, while Linda stayed forward and to the left. She only had a pistol, a Walther PPQ with two magazines. Chuck carried an AKM he had brought himself, while Kane was left with an ancient 1917 Colt and what he had thought was a joke.
“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Linda had said. “It’s enchanted. You’re the only one here who's ever even shot a flintlock.”
She was right, he thought, and it was a beautiful piece of history, but he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be carrying a jezzail at a time like this.
A rough hand motion from Chuck as they were going over a small rise and they all dropped. The silver moon spilled through the trees, and an owl could be heard. They slipped closer together, proning through the snow and coming together in the shadow of a sycamore. He spoke in a whisper.
“Don’t go over the hill. Small group, no more than five, nine o clock, about two hundred yards out, up on the hill. They’re watching the road but I guarantee at least one is watching their backs.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Linda, circle around to our right, get close enough, don’t let them see you. Kane and I are at a good range right here; we’ll cover you while you get in position, then we take the first shot. The ones that are left should duck back behind the hill, and when they do you finish them off. Don’t shoot until we do. The other group’ll be across the road, and come looking; as soon as these ones are taken care of, we run to that rock,” he said, pointing to a large boulder off to their right, “And go from there. Got it?”
“Got it. Kane?”
His head was spinning. It was really happening. They were about to get into a gunfight. All of them could die. All of them could die if things went bad.
“Got it.”
Slowly, painstakingly, Linda went ahead and to their right while Kane and Chuck peered over the left side of the hill and covered her.
Four goblins, lying there, one peering back into the woods, not seeing them in the shadow of the sycamore. The minutes dragged by, one eye on Linda, one eye on the goblins, closer, closer-
Linda trod on a dead branch.
It all happened at once, the group turning as one toward the sound, some panic-
Bang! Chuck started firing, taking one dead in the chest. Kane hesitated, gripping the gun tightly. It was odd; the gun felt like it was trying to drag itself out of its hands and crawl to the enemy. When you aimed, it didn’t want to aim away; only with a disproportionate force could you change targets. Linda had dropped down, and was just coming up to take a shot.
Steadying himself - he only had one shot- he pulled the trigger. What came out of the barrel was abnormally slow, ominous; flickering blue and yellow, it streaked, with about the accuracy one would expect from a smoothbore; but then it veered, curved towards the enemy, and slammed into one of the remaining foes.
The effect was outstanding, an ultra bright flash, ringing he could hear from where he lay; Linda, clearly affected, fell back down, and chuck shook his head to try and clear his eyes; Kane was unharmed. 
“Fuck’n thing,” Chuck swore. “They had said something about it but- I didn’t know it would do that-” he passed his AKM off to Kane. “Finish 'em off for me, will you?”
The one he had hit was burning, so brightly it hurt to look at him; the other two, running blind, were easy to pick off.
Kane handed the rifle back, grabbed Chuck, and started running with him to the boulder.
“It’s all right, it’s all right, I can see now,” he said, “Go get Linda- she hasn’t got back up.”
Horrified, Kane turned around, sprinting, coming to Linda, yelling; she stood, and started running to the burning corpse. He caught up with her-
“What the fuck are you doing? This way!”
“I saw something! When it flashed!”
He was scared. Did the flash do more than blind her?
She had reached the dead one, was digging in the snow now, and shots rang out overhead; he dove into a depression, dragging her in, and pulled out the revolver. She pulled up what she had found, laughing, menacingly, totally absorbed- he chanced a look and his heart sank.
The thing she had found was a piece of parchment. It had black marks and shadows; a small seal at the top confirmed his worst fears.
“Allah,” he muttered. “Oh, Allah, save us-”
They were closing in, firing as they did, and he couldn’t chance coming out of cover for a shot. They were as good as dead.
He heard the AKM  roar, and a goblin scream; momentarily, the shots paused, and he stood, bringing the revolver to bear.
Four feet away, one clutching its arm, its gun dropped, two feet away the other with its eyes wide, bringing a type 56 up, too late.
BLAM! BLAM!
Two squeezes and two more dead, fallen in the snow. Kane paused, and everything was quiet; then he was shaking, completely, uncontrollably, and dropped to his knees, utterly spent. He looked down, and noticed he had wet himself.
Standing, cursing, he moved back toward Linda, demanding an explanation; the words died halfway out of his mouth.
Her lips were moving, but she was not speaking. Her eyes had rolled to the back of her head, and her black hair, tied up before, was now waving and slithering, as if she was underwater. Her skin was bone white, and her mouth was spasming; blood ran from the corners of her mouth.
“Linda, please,” he said, moving closer. “Linda.” She wasn’t responding. He gently touched her face.
For a second, he saw the world as it was. Rivulets of darkness and a howling wind, a massive distorted shape, contrasted with a sharp, brilliant outline in its clutches-
“Linda!”
His cry caught its attention; it was all the distraction she needed. She split down the middle; like a snake she swallowed the thing whole, and it screamed. Soon it was done- her outline stared into him; he beheld no mercy. He was back in the forest, and she was seemingly back to normal.
“What was that?”
“A dark spirit.”
“No, I mean- what the fuck was that, Linda? What were you thinking?”
He put a palm to his forehead and tried not to shout, failing. “Look at them. Fucking look at them!” He waved a hand at the corpses. “We were this close! We had a plan, we had a plan and you just fucking forgot it- saw something shiny-”
She was crying. “I couldn’t help it-”
“Oh I see. I see. You couldn’t help it.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “We ran right at them, we almost got shot to pieces because you just ‘couldn’t help it,’ okay. I get it.”
He whirled and punched a tree as hard as he could, splitting the skin of his knuckles open and making her flinch. The tree showered him with snow.
“Alright. ‘I couldn’t help it.’ Alright.”
“Kane, please, please, just calm down, Kane-”
“Shut up.”
For a long moment neither of them moved.
Chuck popped over the hill behind them, glowered at Linda, and called out, “Kane? Is that you under all that? We’d best get going.”
Kane groaned, more conscious of his pain now, and started massaging his knuckles.
‘Can’t,” Linda called out. “There’s still a shaman out here.”
“What?”
“These ones took the scroll and left him back at their camp,” she said. “He’s waiting for them to come back.”
Chuck looked at her oddly. Kane asked the question. “How do you know? Was it the spirit?”
“What spirit?” Chuck asked. “What happened?”
“Courtesy of these late gentlemen, I have a new pet,” Linda said. “Hold still, darling. Let me see your hand.” She took his hand and uncorked a potion, splashing some of it onto the wound.
“Can you trust it?”
“I own it. All of it. I dominated it completely.”
The scroll was now faded, devoid of shadow or marking. Kane looked it over in wonder. “With some help,” he added, grinning.
“With some help,” She assented, smiling. “With some help.”
“Well, where can we find him?” Chuck asked.
“I’m not sure,” Linda said. “They left a week ago, and they return every two weeks. We have time.”
“Storms came in two days ago, dumped all this snow,” Chuck muttered. “No tracks.”
“How far is this guy?” Kane asked.
“Miles away, easily. He wouldn’t have just stood by if we were close enough for him to know about us.”
“He could be coming here right now,” Interjected Chuck, unslinging his rifle.
“I doubt it. The spirit remembers a clearing, and an injured one; the shaman is probably taking care of him.”
Kane set his gear down. “We’ll figure out where he is in the morning. Let’s start a fire.”
“Let’s.”

One fire and a scrubbed out pair of pants and underwear later they were done. Chuck scavenged what he could from the corpses, having dragged them all into an unsightly pile outside of camp. “Waste not, want not,” he said.
With the tree having dumped a pound of snow on him, the fire was quite nice. Linda in his arms made it that much better. 
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said. “Chuck explained it to me… didn’t know that happened to mages.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, drawing closer. “You saved my life.”
“What does it feel like? When you see a challenge like that. What makes you chase after it?”
She was twiddling her hands, Kane thought, in the cute way she did when she was embarrassed. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Try.”
“Alright.” She took a deep breath. “It’s hunger, almost. Like you were hungry all your life and there was a big banquet right in front of you. Like you’ll be able to feast forever if you beat it to the table. It’s hard to stop fighting them once you start. You keep looking for the next challenge, and the next, and the next…”
“What would it take for you to pull away?”
“A lot.” she sighed, stopped twiddling, and took his hand. “A lot.”
The fire lulled them closer to sleep, snapping and crackling.
“During the fight earlier,” she said, sleepily, “You said something funny. Something about… Allah?”
He had, hadn’t he? Funny that he shouldn’t remember.
“Yeah… I don't know what came over me. Just kind of… slipped out.”
“Mhm.”
She turned over and fell asleep.
He was not a religious man. He just didn’t know why. He shook his head and tried to figure out what they were going to do tomorrow.
Don’t want to spend the next couple weeks wandering around the woods waiting to get blown up, he thought. Got to be another way.
He racked his brains for an answer and just couldn’t figure out what to do. He sighed irritably and laid down. Just as he was falling asleep he thought of the answer. 
The Jezail! He sat up. If it sought whatever you aimed it at, then maybe. How could he aim it at the shaman, though?
He thought of what they had that was connected to their target, and pulled out the parchment. Maybe if he shoved it down the barrel, with a squib load. The projectile would probably go slower if he shot it with only a little powder. Then they could follow it.
Satisfied, he laid back down. 
Something was bugging him, denying him sleep, but he just couldn’t place it.
Oh.
The Jezail.
That was why.
That was…
“No, it couldn’t be,” he whispered. In his heart he knew.
It was a long time before he could fall asleep. When he did things got stranger. He dreamed of shifting sands, and voices of a woman he had never known, singing in a language he had never heard. He walked under a winter night, far in the past, in another country, under arabian stars… He was in a group, going to kill the invaders. What invaders? 
He was woken up by Chuck, the Jezail tucked under one arm. He never remembered grabbing it.
As they were packing up, he unloaded it, and, explaining his idea, poured the bare minimum amount of powder in, ripped up the parchment, and dropped the fragments down the barrel. 
Linda and Chuck were doubtful, but he knew it would work. He reassured them. “It’s the only way,” he argued. “Unless you want to tramp around the woods for a couple of days.”
“It’s your powder,” Chuck said, laughing.
Linda was less amused. “I have my doubts.”
“Trust me,” Kane said, pointing the rifle off into the trees. “Watch.”
Pop!
It sounded more like a cap pistol. A green flame slithered out of the gun, coalescing into a green fireball that spirited itself gently through the woods.
“Well I’ll be damned.”
“That’s… odd. He never said it could do that.”
Kane just grinned.
It led them on at a good pace, even stopping to let them catch up when Kane stumbled. After a long walk they stopped at the entrance of a cave.
Kane felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The birds had all gone silent; there was nothing in there, he thought, that would be worth retrieving, 
The flame of the Jezail went straight in, and kept going, showing everything.
Linda retched. Kane had a death grip on the rifle, couldn’t move; Chuck turned pale, and whispered, “That’s not a fucking goblin.”
The shaman had been busy. The walls of the cave were decorated with runes of blood; on a bed in the corner was the one the shaman had been ‘taking care of.’ A withered old corpse, chained to the bed, flies buzzing; face twisted in a last scream. The center of the room held a pit, with coals, and a dirty shawl thrown over it; an empty parchment lay on the floor, soaked, as was everything in the room, with fresh blood. The corpse of the shaman in question was nowhere to be seen; his viscera and organs and limbs thrown violently outward from the pit; the sacrificial pit, Kane realized, seeing the fire brush against a shadow in the center of the room.
It popped, like a miniature firework. The shade opened its eyes.
Linda, with a roar far beyond what she should have been able, brought her new pet to bear, drawing the shade in just as Kane fired. Chuck panicked, started digging around in his pack for something.
The fireball from the Jezail met the shade halfway, consuming it in a blinding flash and throwing Chuck and Linda to the floor; the shade, wreathed in fire, a sizable hole in it, was stunned, as was everyone else. Kane started to pull his revolver and thought better of it; grabbing a blind chuck he placed him well out of the action.
The shade and the spirit recovered, and engaged, ripping and howling with such ferocity the boundary between their world and this world dissolved; the world of the forest slipped away, opening and folding out of existence. It pulled Kane in, Chuck recovering enough to pass him something and scream “Get her out of there!” before he faded from view.
He saw that the shade was winning, easily; that Linda was cowering behind the lesser spirit; he sprinted over, getting ready to grab Linda and throw the holy water Chuck had passed him-
The lesser spirit was grabbed, pinned; Linda had one more trick.
In one touch she communicated her plan, and Kane followed it. It was risky; but as long he kept hold of her, she said, everything would be all right.
He kept hold of her arm and she dove into the lesser creature, becoming one with it; the shade was now outmatched, but it was just as cunning, and saw through the trick. It made a mad dash towards Kane.
He could feel Linda’s rage boil over, and grabbing the shade she meant to stop it; but the shade, using the last of its remaining strength, struggled against the grip, and before Linda and the lesser creature could send the thing back to its own damned plane it raised one hand and raked Kane from head to toe.
Pain beyond anything he had ever imagined, without end, beyond endurance; his skin peeled away, for the first time in his life he heard the abyss, and felt its clutches. He held his grip. She said it would be okay.
The shade was broken, and banished back to its own place; he pulled Linda out, and then fell over. His left leg had disappeared; his soul had been infected, grubs and shadows and vermin from the dark tunneled under his flesh, became one with it; his eyes, no, just one eye now, screwed up and he knew it was the end. The shadows were almost done with his skin, and were moving inward-
Linda, scrambling, dropping it, grabbing it again, uncorked the holy water and doused him with it as the forest faded back into view. 
The dark spirits consuming him burst into flames, and what skin had been left melted. He gave out a scream that faded into a choked gurgle as the molten flesh and flame found his larynx, and his lungs. He flailed and spasmed, dripping subcutaneous fat like candle wax onto the snow, the blessed snow that finally quenched the burning; in an act of divine mercy he fell unconscious.

The Jezail sat by his bed. It had been given to him, as a token of thanks, along with the original reward and the revolver.
He was in pain. His spirit was, now, according to Linda, corrupted, to an extent, and errant, alien, destructive thoughts and intentions marred his psyche. He felt cynical beyond words. The burns had healed, somewhat, but became infected; he thought he would die, and be released from the pain, but the spirits within wished to keep him as a host. They tunneled into his flesh and stopped infection wherever they found it.  His body was pockmarked with them, taken over by them, and still it was falling to pieces; his heart had slowed, week by week, until one day it just stopped. He couldn’t speak, not properly; his tongue was somewhat usable but his voice box was so damaged he couldn’t whisper more than a word without coughing.
I wonder if I even bleed, he thought.
Dead tissue shouldn’t feel pain, he knew that; but it did, for him, as he dug his nails into his palm. A black mulch oozed out, and stained his already yellow fingernails. 
He started to sigh, remembered how painful it was to sigh, and gingerly picked up a book to the side of his bed. Given the circumstances, he had decided being converted by a gun was actually pretty nice. He looked over, his eye sloshing around half out of its socket, granting a very distorted view of his most prized possession. He swore that every day the gun looked more beautiful.
Getting a copy of the Koran had been a pain, but one had finally arrived yesterday, while he was asleep. He was just getting started when Linda walked in the door.
“Hello, Kane.”
She had been crying, as usual, and came closer. “Kane, I- I’m sorry.”
Her visits were always the same, and he hated them. He didn’t want to be mean to her, it was an accident- but looking at her like this just made him angry.
“I found a job here.”
He perked up. 
“I- I found a job here, but there just isn’t any way they’ll let you stay- Kane, please. I didn’t know-”
He wanted to roll his eye, but thought better of it- they’d fall out. He didn’t like how cynical about it he had gotten, but it was very hard not to be. The least I can do, he thought, is hide it.
He wanted to gesture, get something to write with, and put down in big block letters “LEAVE ALREADY,” but he didn’t. Instead he raised his hand, and gave a thumbs up.
“Oh, Kane-”
She, forgetting everything, took him in a big hug and squeezed. He tensed up, managed an ACK, ACK sound before she remembered and dropped him back down. He grimaced and squirmed at the pain, forever, finally coming to rest with some heavy breathing and sweating.
“I’m so sorry, I just, I don’t know how you can still be so kind- I’ll be back, Kane, I promise, this won’t be the last place we meet each other. I swear. I won’t forget. I won’t let it happen again.”
At last she left him alone. He was wheezing- his lungs didn’t like working hard. He had tried to stop breathing, but try as he might he couldn’t kick the habit. After a long time, he picked up the Koran again.

He never thought he would walk again, and neither did the doctors. A week later he was shambling on an excessively gruesome prosthetic, and his heart was beating again. The shadows could imitate human flesh, even create it, given enough time but they, generously speaking, had a long way to go. They would build flesh without what was needed to support it, and had yet to grasp how the body really worked. His new leg reeked, kept rotting away, but every time they cut it off it grew back. So they kept it. He had so far had sixteen heart attacks, and his blood had progressed from black to green. His cells had, according to the doctors, adapted to feed on magical sources, much like ghouls; he wondered why they went to the trouble of trying and failing to restart his body if that was the case, but he preferred to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it made him easier to possess or something.
Two months and a mostly peaceful protest by the townsfolk later and they showed him the door. 
“I’m sorry,” Linda said- they always only talked to him after literally dousing their masks in peppermint oil, not that he blamed them- “But we just can’t keep you. They keep saying you’re a ghoul, that we’re harboring a demon, they just don’t understand. We have a place in mind, but you’ll have to get there yourself-”
“No.” she flinched at his voice; it still hurt to speak, it still hurt to do anything- but the makeshift work on his throat put chain smokers and throat singers alike to shame, ringing of the void and its corruption of him.
“No,” he repeated. “I can take care of myself. Thank the place for keeping me as long as they did. If you ever need a bounty hunter, ask around for Kane- I’ll get there.`` In ten seconds he packed everything he owned and moved towards the door.
“Wait- take this,” She said, tossing him a great cloak. “Put it on, It’ll help you hide,” she explained. “If you’re under it, others will have a hard time seeing you. It’s magic, too, so It’ll keep you going. It’ll- It’ll stop you from stinking so bad. You’ll smell old, not rotten.”
She was twiddling her hands, red in the face. Kane wanted to, was going to, but he stopped, looking down at the black chunks on his leg. He couldn’t. “You made this yourself.” Obviously. Why couldn’t he think of what to say? “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
He stepped outside, sighed at his cowardice, winced at the pain, and was gone.