Shadows Over America, Book 1: An Exodus of Worms Read online

SHADOWS OVER AMERICA

  Book 1: An Exodus of Worms

  by Aaron Smith

  Published by Pro Se Press

  Part of the SINGLE SHOTS SIGNATURE line

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

  Copyright © 2015 Aaron Smith

  All rights reserved.

  Many thousands of years ago, during an age of which modern historians are ignorant, on the land mass that is now called North America …

  Garo had been warned not to stray far from the village. His mother told him to stay within sight of the perimeter, but he was a curious boy and knew he was old enough, having seen seven summers and winters, to venture just a bit past the boundary.

  The land grew wild after the low wall of stone that surrounded the village. A gap of several meters separated the wall from the edge of the forest. Garo knew better than to enter the woods, for beasts dwelled there: his grandfather, the village shaman, had instructed him in the ways of the wolves and carrion birds. His grandfather gave a special warning about the venomous things that slithered among the brush and could kill even the strongest of men with a bite almost too small to be seen. But the gap between village and forest was safe and the boy could watch both worlds from there, looking back on his people cooking, cleaning skins, readying their arrows and spears for the hunt, doing all that was needed to sustain their lives. He could look out into the land beyond, wondering what waited beyond the trees, what wonders were out there where he would venture when his legs grew long and his back grew strong and he could walk with the men into the vast unknown.

  Garo sat atop the piled stones and stared at the wall of trees. After some time, he grew bored, looked down at the ground beneath his dangling feet. He saw the worms and his eyes grew wide with wonder.

  There were many of them, more than Garo had ever seen at one time. The small gray things slid slowly across the ground, through the dirt, from under rocks and out of the forest, toward the wall.

  Garo tried to count, but lost his tally after the fourth dozen. He was astonished. He would often see one or two or even five of the creatures in the morning when the dirt was still moist from the cool of the night, but they were never like this, so many writhing purposefully in the same direction as if driven toward the village by some mutual plan. Garo jumped down from the wall and ran to the village for a strange sight means nothing if not shared with the eyes of others.

  *****

  The slamming of iron against iron sent loud echoes into the air. The heat of the forge could be felt where Garo stood. The boy kept a safe distance from the sparks that flew as Ralim beat the new blade into proper shape. After seven more strokes of the hammer, Ralim caught sight of his small visitor and ceased his work.

  “What do you want, little brother?”

  “Ralim, come and see what I have found!” Garo’s voice rose with pure excitement. “The worms, Ralim, the worms are …”

  “Garo, I do not have time for your silly games or your worms! If you want to play in the mud, then go back to your crawling and leave me alone. There is work to be done!” Ralim laughed heartily, unable to keep up his scolding tone for long. As always, he found his little brother’s curiosity and enthusiasm more amusing than annoying. He ruffled the small one’s hair and returned his attention to the forge.

  Garo groaned, considered insisting that his older brother come and see what he had found, but thought better of it and turned to seek a different audience. He knew where to go next. If Ralim would not listen, then Grandfather would. Garo loved his grandfather and had learned much from him. A white-haired man who seemed older than all the time that had passed since the beginning, he knew more about the ways of the world than any other among the tribe. Surely, Garo thought, he would be able to explain the behavior of the worms.

  The shaman’s hut was a short run from Ralim’s forge. Garo stopped and listened at the door, for his grandfather did not like to be interrupted during his meditations. Garo heard nothing, not the chanting of the sacred speech or the snoring of a tired old man. He pushed aside the flap of hide that covered the entrance and walked inside.

  The hut was empty. Garo hung his head in disappointment for a moment before turning and slowly walking out, heading back in the direction of the stone wall to see how far the exodus of worms had progressed. The shaman, Garo guessed, must have gone off to gather the herbs he used to make his potions.

  *****

  The shaman sat atop a hill three miles from the village. He watched his grandson enter and then leave the hut. He did not see Garo with his eyes, for age had made his sight weak and, even had it not, three miles was too great a distance for the vision of the fleshly body to cross. The shaman saw with the mind’s eyes now, for in recent days his powers had grown stronger, even as his body weakened with the approach of the end of his years. Strangely at first, though the change no longer surprised him, he was no longer satisfied to make medicines to cure simple fevers and sing ancient songs to grant health to newborn children and their mothers and send prayers to gods that never seemed to speak back. The shaman wanted more now, and the dreams had shown him how to take what he deserved.

  Yes, he knew, Garo had found the worms and ran about the village in surprise and delight at his discovery. But the men and women of the tribe would pay him no mind, for they had skins to sew and meals to cook and all the tasks that outweighed the wanderings and babblings of a single curious boy.

  Garo had seen the first sign of the shaman’s success, but by the time the others noticed the more obvious signs of the return of the great ancient things, they would have no time left to stop it.

  The shaman turned his mind from Garo and back to the hidden places he could now perceive. His mind had gone one layer into the earth and the worms had begun to flee, for the worms knew, not in words but in the way animals know more than man, though they cannot explain this knowledge, that even deeper things would soon begin to awake, and any small crawling things in the way would be consumed.

  *****

  Ralim pulled on his woolen tunic and went to begin the day’s hammering.

  In an hour’s time, he had set up his tools, filled the cooling bucket with water from the nearby stream, and ignited the fire. He stood and admired the sword he had finished the previous day. The blade was straight, the handle strong, and the edges sharp. He was satisfied.

  Garo, on the other hand, was very dissatisfied. When he woke on the third day after his discovery at the wall, the worms were no longer on Garo’s mind. He worried about his grandfather now, for the shaman still had not returned to the village. And there had been other signs too; things Garo doubted anyone else in the village had noticed. The squirrels seemed frantic in their gathering of nuts, small snakes slithered away even faster as human feet approached, and even the general mood of the village seemed wrong, with tempers short and babies quicker to cry than on most days. Once again, he sought out Ralim, pleaded for his older brother to listen, but Ralim shrugged off his Garo’s concerns.

  “He has gone off into the wild before and not returned for many days,” the maker of weapons and tools reminded Garo.

  “But he is old,” the little boy protested, “and his legs are weak and his eyes no longer sharp. What if he has fallen
or wolves have taken him?”

  “Ha!” Ralim laughed. “Then you shall be the shortest shaman the village has ever known, for you are to succeed him in his office one day.”

  “But I am not ready!” Garo said. “There is much I have yet to learn: the old songs, and the plants that make medicine, and the names of all the gods! If only father had not died of sickness, I wouldn’t have to hurry and learn so much so fast!” Garo stopped there. He almost slipped and mentioned the fact that Ralim had been passed over in the order of initiation—Grandfather had judged the elder brother to be a fine candidate for a craftsman, husband, and father, but lacking the proper mind for a holder of secrets and maker of medicines. But talk of such choices would only hurt Ralim, and Garo was sensitive to this.

  “Then stop your worrying, little brother. Grandfather will return, as he always does.”

  Before he could put it down and begin his next task, a sound split the air. It was a horrible noise, an awful howling, like a hundred strange voices crying out in desperate confusion and rage all at once. It came from the south.

  Ralim began to run in the direction of the noise and was soon joined by seven other young men. The older men of the village had come out of their huts too, as had the women and children. All the people of the tribe were awake now and none had ever before heard such a cacophony.

  Ralim still had the sword in hand as he ran southward, leaping over the low stone wall and following the sound. His seven companions had armed themselves too, some with swords, others with spears or hammers or long staffs.

  They ran into the forest and sped past the trees and over the brush. In the next clearing, they knew, was the burial ground, where the villagers had put their dead for as long as any living tribesman could recall. Had the sound come from there, Ralim wondered? But what manner of beast could howl in such a way?

  The question was answered as they reached the place. All eight of them stopped in their tracks, jaws open wide, eyes seeing but minds not believing.

  “The dead have risen!” cried Simm, son of the village’s best hunter.

  The dirt of the graves was now piled in heaps around the edges of holes in the ground. Wretched, half-rotted men and women walked about, their eyes empty and mouths emitting the sounds that had woken the village. They shuffled north, toward the forest, toward the young men. Bits of decayed cloth fell from their bodies as they moved.

  “Uncle?” one of the villagers said with a confused look as he recognized one of the risen dead. “What has happened to you?”

  The resurrected uncle shuffled forward, half-decayed arms outstretched toward the man who had been its nephew. It had almost reached him when Ralim’s sword swung forward and cut it down.

  “Unnatural sorcery,” Ralim said. “But these are only the walking shells of our people. Think of them as beasts now, not as our fallen friends and family.” He motioned to his seven friends. “Give them back to the earth!”

  The young men rushed forward. They were far outnumbered, as three or even four dozen corpses had come up from the belly of the world, but the dead were slow and soulless and did not defend themselves.

  Ralim’s sword slashed and hacked and proved itself worthy of existence as the heads of the dead rolled along the ground and fell back into the graves. Other walking corpses were struck down by staffs and spears. The sound of the battle was furious, but it was a one-sided fight and easily won by the living. When the dead were still again, as the dead should always be, Ralim, Simm, and the others, covered in sweat and frightened by what they had seen and done, began their tired walk back to the village.

  “What could have caused this?” Simm asked. He was pale, trembling as he spoke.

  “We must ask the shaman,” Ralim said.

  “Has he returned from his journey?”

  “No, but now it is time we go and find him, wherever he is.”

  “Let me come with you!” Garo shouted, appearing from behind a bush.

  “Garo!” Ralim said, surprised. “You followed us, you little imp! If Mother knew you were here, she would …”

  “But you will not tell her,” Garo said. “You cannot stand to see her worry.”

  “No, Ralim agreed, “but I cannot allow you to come with us to seek the shaman. You are too small and it may be dangerous.”

  *****

  Every man, woman, and child in the village gathered together that night. They sat on the ground around a large fire, each afraid to be out of sight of the others, all shaken to the core by what the young men had reported.

  “Perhaps the gods have grown angry with us!” said the chieftain.

  “But what offense have we committed?” a fruit gatherer asked.

  “How can we be certain without the shaman here to guide us?” Ralim offered.

  “Something has happened to him! Why has he not come back to us?” Garo cried out.

  “Hush, child,” said Garo’s mother. “This is a time for the older, wiser of us to confer.”

  “Perhaps,” said Urlock, the village chieftain, “we should explore further south. That is the direction from which the strange trouble seems to originate. Tomorrow then, all strong men who are willing and can wield a sword or an ax shall follow me through the forest, to the burial ground, and beyond. We must discover the source of the dark magic that assaults us, with or without the shaman to show us the way!”

  “Aye!” shouted many men at once.

  “I want to go with them,” Garo said to his mother.

  “You will not,” she told her youngest son. “There are things in this world … and the worlds beyond, which are not meant for eyes as young as yours.” She bowed her head and said no more, afraid her words might cause more panic among the villagers. The things that had been happening reminded her of a dark legend she had heard years earlier, a story that had left her unable to sleep soundly for many nights.

  The meeting adjourned, each family went to its hut to rest, but the night was full of fear and sleep was hard to achieve.

  *****

  Garo did his best to keep the others in sight. His small stature and youthful energy allowed him to climb over rocks and scurry along like a squirrel, darting through the forest as he followed the men of the village. He stayed far back so they would not see him should any of them momentarily turn around. He did not worry about the noise his footsteps made as he followed, for the marching of the twenty men ahead of him drowned it out.

  He had to be careful. Ralim would beat him and send him back to the village if he found him. But Garo had no choice. Something was terribly wrong in the world. He could feel it. He worried about his grandfather and knew, in a way he could not understand, that the shaman was somehow connected to the worms and also to the rising dead that Ralim and the others had cut apart and sent back to their graves. Garo knew his mother was worried, perhaps crying for him back at the village, but he had to press on. He felt the world calling out to him, as if the lives of all those he had known in his seven summers and winters depended on his being there when the men reached their mysterious destination. Perhaps, Garo thought, this was how it is for all boys who are to someday become shaman.

  The morning wore on and Garo kept up his pace, always following. The pilgrimage continued past a burial ground similar to the one where they had battled the risen corpses the day before. Few of them could resist the urge to glance over and see if these graves, too, had been turned inside out by escaping occupants, but there was no sign of danger.

  After the graves, the land went on for another long stretch until the wind brought the first hint of the smell of the sea to the men as they walked on and on, swords and axes growing heavier by the mile. Garo, behind them, was tired but determined.

  *****

  The shaman sat atop the mound at the edge of the sea. When he found it, he had wondered how it had come to be there, so tall and firm, strong enough to bear the weight of a man, though the rest of the beach was of soft, shifting sand. Somehow, the mound was supported by the strength o
f rock under the soil, though its placement in that part of the land, just where the foaming tide of the endless ocean kissed the earth, seemed preternatural.

  The shaman did not wonder about such phenomena now, for things were as they were and that was all he needed to know. The trivial things had fallen from his mind, for he had answered the great calling and been shown the truth behind all the veils of man’s flawed perceptions.

  He could feel the people approaching, searching for him. Soon they would be where he needed them to be. He had stayed ahead of them, but would go no further. There, on the edge of the sea, was where they would find him. They would be his offering to the true god that had called him out of his decades-long slumber and pulled him into the reality he now knew. He would sacrifice those he had known in this frail, false life to help his new master retake the world. It would be a glorious confrontation.

  *****

  “We have almost reached the shore and have found nothing,” one of the farmers complained.

  “Then we shall continue on until the water shines before us,” the Urlock the chieftain said, “and if it shows us nothing, then we will return to the village. But the evil that turned the graves of our ancestors inside out must have a source, and I will not sleep easily until I know we are safe from such dark sorcery.”

  “Look!” called Ralim as he, along with the others in the front of the procession, reached a point where they could see over the dunes to the edge of the ocean.

  The party paused. Ahead of them was a high mound as tall as several men standing atop each others’ shoulders. A figure stood at the peak of the mound, tall and thin, his white hair waving in the sea breeze.

  “The shaman!” said Urlock. “Wait here, men, while I confer with him.”

  Ralim and the others watched as their leader walked over the sand toward the mound. They hoped the words the two elders were to speak would reach their ears over the hum of the waves.