Last Command of the Witheld Arc 1: Rebirth

BELKNAP MOUNTAIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE, TODAY

Reese’s cabin was dark when Griffin and Sarah pulled into the little dirt parking lot to the side of the house. Griffin’s mom’s big black SUV was parked in the only other spot. Not a single light was on inside.

“That’s weird,” Griffin said unbuckling his seatbelt and picking up the Chinese food, “even if she wasn’t going to eat, she’d usually be up reading or something. Maybe there’s a power outage?”

“Doesn’t your mom have a generator?” Sarah asked as she turned off the car, cutting off the headlights.

She got out of the car and looked around at the moonlit woods. The moon was full and huge and turned the woods around Reese’s house into an alien landscape. “God, look at the Moon, Griffin! It looks like a pumpkin or something,” she said.

Griffin got out of the car and walked over to her, looking at the woods around them. “I thought the cabin came with a generator but I don’t see it anywhere,” he said. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said, looking up at the moon, “was tonight supposed to be a full moon?”

“I, uh, hadn’t heard if it was supposed to be full or not. Do you have the Chinese food?”

Griffin nodded, still looking up at the moon. Sarah took his hand and led him up the short path to the front door of the cabin. She knocked on the door and they waited. Nobody answered. Nothing stirred.

Sarah knocked again, a little louder. After a couple of seconds, Griffin tried the door and found it was unlocked. Not exactly surprising—Reese never kept her doors locked—but it still felt wrong somehow.

The cabin was entirely dark. Not even a digital light from the microwave or the oven clock lit the gloom. It smelled like stale smoke in the cabin, though that could just be from the cold fireplace. “Mom?” Griffin called, “Sorry we’re late!”

“Reese?” Sarah called out right after, “You okay?”

They waited a tense few seconds. Nothing.

Griffin reached out and flipped the light switch. The lights didn’t come on. He fished his phone out of his pocket, hand shaking a little as he flipped it to the flashlight function. They were standing in the foyer of the cabin, with the kitchen to the right, the living room ahead of them, and his mom’s bedroom down the hall off the living room. He carefully scanned through the little area, looking for any hint of his mom.

He found plenty of evidence that his mom had been there, and recently. His flashlight beam showed that the cabin looked lived-in. There was a basket of laundry on the kitchen table, partly folded. There were a couple of dirty dishes in the sink. There was a romance novel on the couch, the page marked with a red ribbon. He walked around the cabin, looking in the bathroom, the bedroom, everywhere, but his mom was nowhere.

“Griffin…” Sarah called from the sunroom, her voice filled with horror, “You need to come here.”

“What?” Griffin called back. He maneuvered around the cluttered furniture and out into the little sunroom. “What’s wrong? Where’s mom?!”

Sarah pointed at the floor by the little telescope he’d given her a couple of years ago for her birthday. He pointed his light there and saw his mom on the floor like she’d fallen there, her white hair everywhere, her skin pale and waxy. Griffin dropped his phone with a strangled noise and rushed over to her. He knelt and started to reach for her, then hesitated when he saw her face, oddly deformed even in the darkness. He fumbled for his phone and played the light over her features.

Where her eyes should be were two blackened, gaping pits. Her mouth was drawn into a pained rictus, her teeth bared and her gums white. Her skin was spidery with veins of some dark substance.

Griffin stumbled back, knocking into the telescope, “What the—” he started to say, then his stomach betrayed him and he had to turn away and throw up.

“I’ll, uh, call… um, 9-1-1,” Sarah said, fumbling out her phone. Griffin barely paid attention.

Before Sarah could place the call though, a deep voice originating from the front door said, “I think we all know it’s a little late for that.”

Griffin choked out a surprised shout and Sarah spun around, pointing her phone’s light at the voice, her eyes going wide. “What the fu—Who the--?” she started to say.

“My name,” the man said, “is August Vasilias,” he paused as if to allow for a gasp of recognition, but both Sarah and Griffin just gaped at him. “Your mother and I were…old friends. She worked on an important project with me.” Griffin suddenly recognized him as the man he saw at the Golden Dragon just a few minutes ago.

“What happened to my mom?! Were you following me?” Griffin said, his eyes drawn back to his mother crumpled on the floor.

“Your mother just recently succumbed to a… disease. I was terribly sorry to hear of her passing.” He noticed Griffin and Sarah’s expression. “No. I didn’t kill your mother.” He waved a hand and suddenly all the lights turned on in the house.

Griffin’s mom’s corpse was revealed in the yellow light of the sunroom, crumpled next to the telescope. She looked shrunken and hollow, skeletal, her skin almost transparent with dark veins beneath. “Why does she look like… that?” Griffin asked, his voice husky.

“I don’t believe you,” Sarah said at the same time.

“Regardless of your belief, we have little time.” He turned and gestured. “Come.”

Sarah and Griffin found themselves following him out of the house and into the little gravel parking lot. Sarah and Griffin looked at each other, shocked that they were doing what he said. The man—August Vasilias—had fished some keys out of his pocket and pressed a button on them. The door of the iridescent purple car folded up like metallic origami. Griffin felt like he was pulled along in Sarah’s wake, following her lead as they climbed into the huge man’s car.

The interior of the supercar was all done in white leather as soft as clouds and it smelled strongly of clove cigarettes. The man—August Vasilias—adjusted his seat and looked up into the mirror, his grey eyes staring into theirs. Griffin saw there were spidery black veins beneath his dark skin just like he’d seen on his mother’s. His eyes looked a little sunken and shadowed. The impossible car suddenly roared to life, and inside, the entire interior lit up with soft purple and blue lights.

August pressed a few buttons on the console in the front seat. Griffin noted with curiously mild alarm that there appeared to be no steering wheel, just a complicated-looking computer console. The car suddenly accelerated out of the dirt driveway in front of Griffin’s mom’s house and sped down the road.

His mother’s home disappeared around a curve taken at perhaps ninety miles an hour and Griffin felt a surge of panic, “What—why am I here?” Griffin asked, his breath coming in sudden gasps. He felt a cold sweat break out all over. Why the fuck am I in here!? He thought. Who the fuck is this guy?! Why is Sarah--?!

August’s grey eyes glanced back into the rearview mirror and Griffin felt his panic subside entirely, his spiraling thoughts suddenly strangled. It felt like someone else grabbed hold of him and physically stuffed the panic back inside, completely against his will. The sensation was horrifyingly violating.

“I’m sorry to be so…unsubtle,” August’s deep voice didn’t sound even a little contrite, only impatient. “I have little time to waste.” August pressed another button and his entire seat swiveled around so that he was reclining facing Griffin and Sarah.

The car continued to speed through turns and navigate flawlessly through the dark woods of Belknap Mountain completely autonomously. In the sudden and enforced calm, Griffin felt like he was an observer outside of himself. Like he was in a video game, controlling an avatar that looked just like him, he found himself noting little things in the background like he did when he played his favorite games. The car didn’t have headlights on. There was silver stitching on the leather seats of the car that reflected the purple and blue interior lights.

August poured them both a drink of something amber from a crystal decanter that he took from the center console. “Here, I think you’ll want one of these,” he said, offering them each a glass.

Griffin took the drink, pulling it down in a single swallow. He suddenly realized that it could have been poison for all he knew. It didn’t taste like poison though. It tasted like whisky. Griffin coughed as the burn hit him and he noticed that Sarah had also drank hers down, though she wasn’t coughing.

August crossed his legs in front of him, adjusting his dark suit slacks at his knees as he did so. His shoes looked like they cost more than Griffin’s college education. He took a silver cigarette case from his tailored suit jacket, pulled a dark clove cigarette from it, and brought it to his lips. Griffin didn’t see him light it, but when he drew on it, the cigarette tip glowed and he puffed out a sweet plume of clove smoke.

Sarah coughed and choked, “Rude! Come on, man, I know you’re being all mysterious and dominant and whatever, but crack a fucking window!”

August’s eyes widened slightly and he frowned, but he didn’t say anything right away. “Well?” Sarah said, “Are you going to shit yourself or are you going to open the window?”

They stared at each other for a long time, August’s face looking like carved onyx. Finally, he smiled widely and Griffin got the sudden uneasy feeling that this was a genuine smile. A genuine smile from this man-made him break into a cold sweat. August leaned over and pressed a button on the console which opened the window. The clove smoke swirled around the cabin for a bit and then was pulled out into the night air.

Sarah pushed her glasses a little further up her nose and glared at August. “Well?” She challenged, “Start talking. We’re here. Why were you at Reese’s house? And who the fuck are you anyway? Why do you want us?”

Before answering, he took a luxurious puff on his cigarette, blowing the smoke out slowly. The blue and purple lighting of the car rendered his dark skin completely black. His eyes seemed almost to glow.

August took another puff of his cigarette before knocking the ash out in a little ash try in the console of the car and saying, “There are three things you need to know. The most important—and pertinent—thing is this: I made a promise to your mother,” he pointed with the clove cigarette at Griffin, “about six months ago. She predicted this day would happen, though I didn’t believe her at the time. I thought her foolish for her request. Now, though…” he sighed and turned his head to stare out the window for a while, expression unreadable. “

“The second thing you need to know,” he took another puff on his clove, “is that I am the most powerful man on this planet.” He certainly looked like he believed it, sitting there facing them in this fantastic car, speeding down the mountain road without steering the damn thing, and casually smoking. “I’m not telling you this to brag to you or to intimidate you, though I can see that you do not believe me.” He shrugged. “I’m not used to explaining myself, but I’m making an exception here. I advise you to listen well.”

“We’re listening,” said Griffin, “right Sarah?”

“I’m all ears.”

“The reason my personal power is pertinent to this discussion is that I cannot do anything about the third thing.” August toyed with an empty glass, pausing before he filled it up. He said, “I fought against that for a long time. It was only when your mother agreed to work with me—finally—that I truly understood it.”

Sarah rolled her eyes and Griffin leaned forward, asking, “What’s the third thing?”

“The third thing and final thing you should know is that in less than eight hours, this world will be annihilated. I know because it’s my fault. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” He filled his glass with the same whiskey he’d given Griffin and Sarah and took a sip before he continued, “Though honestly, if we’re being completely candid with one another, I think we can all acknowledge that humanity would have all destroyed itself within the next decade or two anyway, right?”

Sarah and Griffin just stared at him. He sighed, “Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant. Whether you agree to this or not is irrelevant. Your desires, your lives before now, your plans for your future…”

“Irrelevant?” Griffin asked.

August chuckled, smiling again. “You’re quick.” The car’s engine suddenly roared again and Griffin and Sarah were pressed deep into their leather seats.

“Look,” Griffin said, a point urgently needing clarification, “why am I just accepting all this? My mom’s dead right now and all I can bring myself to feel is a mild concern. A distant sadness.” He frowned, “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here, but at the same time, I’m not freaking out or trying to run and I’m in this car—accepting everything you say without even a little bit of skepticism—which is not typical me behavior.”

August nodded and said, “I’m dampening your emotions and your physiological responses. It’s convenient for getting this kind of information to you people without the constant interruptions or outbursts.”

“You’re kidnapping us.” Sarah accused.

“I’m kidnapping you,” August agreed.

That shut the conversation down for a while. August seemed content to let the silence stretch. Griffin glanced out the window nervously and saw that they were on the highway. A semi came up ahead of them in the distance, but in a few seconds that showed just how insanely fast they were going, the semi was overtaken and they were past it, easily going twice as fast as the semi had been.

“Who are you?” Griffin asked again.

August frowned, his eyes abruptly hardening. “I’m not in the habit of repeating myself.”

“Why do you think the Earth is going to end in eight hours?” Sarah asked.

“Because three hours ago, I pulled out the last battery from the Vuoita Carceri, freeing the only prisoner it contains. It’s a truly nasty monster called The Herald, a creature sustained by the energies of the Void. They cannot be killed, only contained. Cerise and I trapped it in the Moon eight thousand years ago and then got stuck here because your world drains the magic and life out of everything,”

“The Herald is going to first destroy the Moon, then it will do the same to this whole planet just as soon as it regains enough of its personal power to do that. Cerise, your mother—”

“Her name wasn’t Cerise.” Griffin interrupted. “It was Reese.

“Your mother’s name was Cerise Tekara.”

“Reese Tucker. Her maiden name was Polaski.”

August ignored him and continued, “Your mother calculated that it would take ten to twenty hours for the Herald to regain enough strength to kill me. I decided to honor the promise I made to your mother an hour ago, fortunately for you. Both of you.”

“What’s a vo—a vuo—whatever that thing you said earlier?” Sarah pressed, “The thing you said you pulled the battery from? You made it sound like because you did that—”

“It’s irrelevant,” August said.

He held out his hands in front of him and suddenly, there were two lacquered black boxes the size of shoe boxes held in them. He didn’t pull the boxes from anywhere. He didn’t flourish his hands or make any kind of gesture. Just one moment, the boxes weren’t in his hands, the next, they were.

Griffin jumped in surprise. Sarah just glared daggers at August. “What are those?” she asked.

“The most precious gift you will ever receive.”

“What,” Griffin asked, “does any of this have to do with my mo…” He cleared his throat, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes, "My, uh, mom? And why she’s—?” he cut off, unable to talk past the sudden hot lump in his throat. He felt Sarah’s hand in his, squeezing. He glanced over at her, grateful.