Pervious Stories
I Fell into a Sinkhole, there’s a Dead City on the Other Side
A Cabin vs A Killer from the Stars
CASE FILE #3, Date: June 18th, 2021
There’s something about Auburndale that I genuinely feel confused about. Despite it being such an obscure town in Southern Illinois, I never would’ve expected it to draw any more attention than attracting people who have nowhere else to go or would-be thrill seekers thinking they could take on the horrors in the woods. Kushim is merely the tip of the iceberg to some far bigger than both of us. Or he’s merely a puzzle piece in a much greater picture that I need to figure out how to piece together before it tries to kill me and Samantha.
It had been about a month now and she was still staying with me. I wasn’t going to kick her out, but I wondered if she had some sort of plan in place. Although initially things seemed calm, upon getting back to Earth, she shows signs of a severe case of PTSD. The trauma that she had gone through in that other dimension has left her aloof and cold towards others, even me to a lesser degree. Trust me, I tried introducing her to the townsfolk.
While I found this sad, it’s not like I had any experience on how to deal with teenagers. I wasn’t her father, but I was her guardian. Although I’d say more of roommates was a more accurate word. Still, she insists on me not doing her laundry. I respected that and gave her an allowance to get by on.
***
After a particularly restless night of dreaming about my arm having that deathly wound again, I woke up and got ready for the day. When I came out of my room, I saw that she was sitting at the table, picking at some eggs that she had cooked up.
“Looks good,” I said.
She looked up at me through her pink-rimmed glasses. “Thanks, I hadn’t cooked in so long I was afraid I was going to forget everything.”
“That’s good, we could get you to take cooking classes and you could learn something that might help you in the future?”
She looked up at me, her eyes worn out and restrictive of whatever it was that was trapped behind them.
“Or not, whatever you want.” I retracted my statement.
Things weren’t easy between us. It didn’t have to be, and it wasn’t like a fight was going to break out. But she was unresponsive to anything that I suggested when I wanted her to get her life together so that we can move past whatever it was. Don’t get me wrong, I care about her, but I don’t want her to become totally reliant.
Seeing that this conversation was going nowhere, I ate my breakfast, told her I was going to work and proceeded to take my leave.
Working at the construction sites to build or repair farms was a job that paid well, but it wasn’t a regular thing due to Covid lockdown.
Still, my mind kept drifting off thinking about what I should do next? I needed to figure out a game plan on how to get her to open up and get her life back on track. The longer you waste time lamenting about why things are so bad, the harder it is to get everything you want. But then again, I don’t have much room to talk. I lost my house, wife, and a brother. I wonder what they’re up to right now?
Once the workday was over, I came home and immediately was greeted by Samantha holding papers up to my face. She looked hysterical.
“Henry, we need to go!”
I pushed the paper away and chuckled, “Well I’m glad to see that you’re a little more energetic, but I’m not moving for the fourth time in two years.”
“No, you don’t understand, we have to get out of here!”
She had this terrified look in her eyes that I can only say was an inconceivable fear that had overtaken her rationality.
“And why is that?” I questioned.
She was hyperventilating and I moved her over to the couch across from the door. Living in a trailer has both pros and cons. It’s cheap, all of the rooms are close by, and thankfully this one had two bedrooms.
“Sam, tell me what’s wrong?”
When she finally got her breathing under control for a brief moment, she said, “I— I like to look up radio signals. You know, something to pass the time and listen in on whatever police, military, or information from hermits in the woods have to say. But I decided to check on an old frequency that I remember from my time back in Warmire. It was them talking about coming here.”
I looked at her funny and asked her to elaborate further. “I need more information than that.”
“I don’t know much about them; I just know that there were a few survivors of them that were in my city when it disappeared. They kept everyone trapped inside the city before it was transported, and they knew that something was going to happen. They’re the reason everyone’s lives fell apart.”
“Who is “they”, Samantha?” this time I ordered her.
She held on to her heart with both of her arms, her eyes looking around frantically.
“They’re called Protectorate and they’re coming here. That can only mean something bad is approaching. It’s the Aurora Borealis, I’m sure of it!”
She had told me about how her city was caught under an unusual appearance of the Northern Lights. They stretched down so far that they were able to teleport the entire city. I never heard of her city, yet I went there too, and it didn’t affect me. As my theory goes, because we came back before I went there, maybe due to a time anomaly, if you’re still on Earth at the time of being pulled into another dimension, you still register in everyone’s minds because you never left. Samantha wasn’t so fortunate.
But who is Protectorate? I’ve never seen them before.
***
It was late at night still, but I decided to gear up and go down into the Forest Preserve. Samantha was pleading with me for us to leave, but I told her to look outside and tell me if there were any Northern Lights. Thankfully there wasn’t. She calmed down, but she was still convinced that something bad was going to happen here. Note to self, don’t take her up north any time soon.
Whoever this organization is, she equates them to something terrible. They must be exceptionally important, but unless they’re here to kill Kushim, I don’t think it’s going to be anything that I should worry about. As much as I and our “favorite” monster are concerned, they’d have to burn down his entire forest before they can actually kill him. And take care of every carcass that he has.
I decided to go see if I could speak with him. He still has been avoiding me, but this time I was going to have a little company with me. Samantha had never met him, but I told her about my encounter. She wanted to meet him herself. Surprising, but I guess she wanted to see what he was exactly.
When we arrived at the cliff edge, I looked through the forest to see if I would spot those blue lights.
About a minute passed until I realized that he wasn’t anywhere to be found.
“Weird? He’s usually always watching me from a distance whenever I get close.”
Samantha raised her eyebrows at me and said, “Are you sure you weren’t taking hallucinogenic drugs?”
I sarcastically laughed and started the descent down, her following behind and looking nervous about going into the woods at twilight.
Neither of us spoke a word when we reached the bottom, but I felt that usual tension and rotten smell in the air. This was Samantha’s first time, so she was exceptionally sensitive to the rancid odor.
We went deeper into the trees, my mission being to reach the center. I know that giant rock is still here, and that seems like a good spot to get his attention. I felt like since he helped me with my arm problem, and even though we already repaid a debt to each other, I thought it would be worth some form of gratitude for healing me to warn him about the incoming danger.
When we got to the gigantic boulder, I started calling out his name.
Samantha circled around for a bit, still appearing uninterested in my callings until she heard the sound of bones crunching and realigning from behind me.
“HENRY! BEHIND YOU!”
I wasn’t worried about this, it’s not the first time he’s snuck up behind me.
Turning around and keeping up a serious expression. He looked down at me with those same furious blue eyes.
“And why are you calling for me?”
He made sure to stand right over me as close as possible to intimidate. But I was carrying a handgun just in case. Can’t be taking no chances.
“I came to tell you, Samantha thinks that some organization is coming to get you. At least that’s what I think. She just said they’re coming here.” I pointed to her.
“Who’s Samantha and what are you talking about?”
I don’t know why but I felt amused at seeing him confused. For once I had answers that he needed and perhaps this was the only thing that’s keeping us alive at that moment.
“Some military group called Protectorate is coming here. Apparently, they showed up once when her entire city got pulled into another dimension.”
He walked towards her slowly with his hands relaxed. I thought that was odd considering that he always appears to be ready for a fight at any given moment.
“You confuse me child, you smell so unnatural, and give me a feeling of familiarity.”
Her face looked nervous, but she almost stretched her hand out to touch his leather-covered arm.
I quickly got between her and him. “Yeah, she was trapped in another realm. We were able to get back thanks to a Nexus Point.”
He snarled at me when I mentioned that last part. “What do you know about them?”
“Whoa, whoa, no hostilities please. I’ve just been reading about them on the deep web.”
“Humans shouldn’t know about them. But I guess it doesn’t matter. You’ve already gotten yourself so deep into this world, I wouldn’t be surprised at you finding yourself becoming a Primordial at the end.” he sadistically laughed.
I raised an eyebrow, wondering exactly what he meant but before we could even continue this almost pointless conversation, I heard something.
“Wait, do any of you hear that?”
All three of us remained quiet as we heard the sound of loud engines approaching the edges of the cliff. There were also helicopter blades that were cutting through the air. It would appear that our uninvited guests have arrived.
“Alright, first things first, we need to hide somewhere.” I cautioned.
Kushim melted into a pile of dead bones and flesh, without even attempting to help us hide. Just great…
It didn’t matter anyway, I knew where there were some caves nearby. But I certainly wouldn’t want to be caught in one. I’ve heard stories from army vets talking about how they blew up entrances to trap their enemies inside.
We ran as fast as we could toward the closest cave that I could remember. When we got there, Samantha was reluctant to go in. I had to practically push her hard to get her to keep moving in.
“Stop whining, you don’t want to be seen by those guys, do you?” I yelled.
“It’s dark, it’s musky, I don’t want to get my clothes dirty. I had these since Warmire,”
“I’ll wash them!”
“NO YOU WILL NOT!”
Frustrated, I pushed her in.
We stayed close to the entrance, watching as flashing lights dance through the trees, going in every direction. We thought that we would be safe because it seemed like they were moving a little closer to the center part. Perhaps they were here for Kushim.
But we had to be extra quiet because three soldiers happened to walk right by us, thankfully not taking notice.
One of them said, “So, you boys ready for another one of those things?”
The one closest to him on the right, said, “Dude, I wasn’t ready to fight the one back in 2012. And the worst part was that it was only some civilians that got the killing shot on it.”
“Well, that was a long time ago. And I don’t know why you’re so salty about that? We did most of the work on that case.”
“You two! Cut the chatter! We have about fifteen to twenty minutes before that thing arrives! We have to stage a defensive line to make sure that it’s cut off and can’t reach the town! They’ve already begun evacuations!”
“Roger that, and uh… sorry sir,”
His friend nudged his shoulder against him. “Eh, don’t take it personally, rookie. All we have to do is keep this thing from getting out and we can be back to base to enjoy our victory cake.” he chuckled.
The private replied, “Okay. Hey, has anyone noticed there are a lot of dead animals around here? Like I can see them piled up in all kinds of places.”
“Don’t know, don’t care. Let’s move,”
The three soldiers moved out of the area and it was just the two of us again.
“Well, I’m starting to get the feeling they’re not here for Kushim.”
Suddenly his voice crept up behind us, “I’m inclined to agree.”
Both of us jumped back and nearly screamed loud enough to be heard but I quickly grabbed Samantha by the mouth to prevent her.
“Kushim, don’t do that!” I said with a repressed shout. This time he did get me.
Right now he was in his beaver, raccoon, and grisly attached duck wings body. “I can’t help it, I have to hide as well and I figured I’d stick close to you for now.”
“Us? Why us? You can hide anywhere.”
“Caves hide my heat signature. I give off a lot of that.”
That was a fair enough reason.
Samantha ended up asking a question, “Wait, how are you able to control dead bodies? What are you made of?”
He grumbled to her questions but surprisingly answered, “Light cells, and I leave the nervous system intact in all my body puppets. But not every primordial prefers dead bodies as I do.”
She crouched down lower and kept staring at the blue lights coming from his eyes. I was even a little weirded out by her interest in him, but I guess I can’t judge her. This is probably the first time a monster hasn’t tried to eat her. Although I’m certain he would if circumstances allowed.
For the last fifteen minutes we’ve been hiding in this cave. The air is stale and rancid due to Kushim but no one is brave enough to make a run for the cliff and get back home.
“I’m bored,” Samantha whined.
“Too bad,” I said. “We aren’t going to risk getting shot at.”
“Yeah but…” she looked at the back of the cave. “Can’t we go further into the cave?”
“Weren’t you worried about your clothes?” I retorted.
She replied, “It’s actually not as dirty as I thought.”
I didn’t really mind as long as she didn’t go outside, but to my surprise, Kushim interrupted, “No, it’s best not to get curious in dark places.”
All I could think of was how ominous that sounded and now he was making me a little curious too. But that would have to wait because the air started to crackle with a loud boom.
“Anyone else hear that?” I asked.
All three of us crouched lower to the ground but moved closer to the exit to look up at the sky.
There was a bright light that was streaking closer to the ground, traveling at an insane speed, like a falling star. It was just about upon us until it struck with a cataclysmic impact that sent a gigantic ripple through the ground and made all of us collectively fear that the cave was going to collapse on us. Kushim would probably survive, but if it did fall, it’s lights out for me and Samantha.
The shaking was brief and the loud explosion was quickly able to dissipate past us.
I stood up a little, taking a look outside to get a better view and saw at least a few more of those soldiers’ lights moving in towards the impact zone.
“I think they’re leaving, we can make our escape,” I said.
Samantha got on her feet and the two of us were just about to take off running for the pathway back up the cliff, but she pulled on my shirt when she looked back at Kushim.
“What about him?”
“What about him?” I thought but instead said, “He knows how to survive, I’m sure it’s fine.”
She removed her hand and approached him and spoke softly, “Want to come hide with us at our house?”
I really didn’t want his rotting corpse in my house again. I already lost my last house because of this monster and the last thing I need is for his stink to ruin the new carpets. I live in a beautiful, vintage, 1950s trailer house. They don’t make those anymore.
“Oh, I’m sure Henry here would appreciate seeing me inside his home again.” he couldn’t smile but I’m certain he was.
I gave him a thorough frown, letting him know that I really didn’t but Samantha said again, “We’re supposed to help those in need.” she turned towards me. “And I let you stay in my home, now I ask that you let him stay in ours.”
This girl has no idea how close this creature nearly killed me, plus she lives with me now so frankly she has no room to make this request. But I could hear those soldiers getting close again, so I wasn’t about to spend all day debating about this. I told her to bring him and we both started off back to the path. She grabbed hold of his ugly, rotten self and piggybacked him. I don’t think he was expecting that either and I’m sure if it wasn’t for the fact that the head was an entire skull, he’d be blushing from embarrassment.
Still, it wasn’t going to be an easy trip back to home base. We saw that the pathway up the cliff had one guard who was walking back up the same way as we needed to go.
I reached into my pocket and grabbed my brass knuckles. Crouching low to the ground, I stealthily approached him from behind and tapped his shoulder. I moved in the other direction so as to confuse him when he looked. He turned again to the other direction where I swiftly gave him a quick punch to the face.
He winced from the impact, and I proceeded to punch him a few more times in the face to make sure he was definitely knocked out. I was still practicing.
I grabbed his radio, knowing full well that you want to have information of what is going on in order to survive. He didn’t seem to be carrying any heavy weapons on him, just a Desert Eagle, but I already have one myself.
“We need to keep moving,” Samantha whispered to me.
“I know,”
When we reached the top, I heard an insane amount of chatter breaking over the comms. Then a sudden barrage of gunfire and explosives started illuminating the woods behind us. They had started engagement with whatever it was that had crash-landed.
Kushim watched with a somber look as he saw his home being set ablaze by this military group.
I tugged on Samantha’s shirt and said, “Come on, we need to get back to the trailer.”
And so we left the forest to be scorched by whatever purposes that were being conducted. I was going to have to learn why they would go to such lengths and how far it would escalate.
***
I was the first one inside and immediately sat down at the table where I started listening in on their conversations. There was too much screaming as if everyone was panicking and I found it hard to distinguish any particular person talking.
Samantha had dragged Kushim to her room to do who-knows-what. I wasn’t particularly concerned, and I was sure that no harm was going to come to her. Though he better not leave any of that brown slime anywhere. I am not getting an infection again.
Finally after a few moments, I heard the voice of someone who was coordinating the attack.
“The target is moving erratically through the woods. It’s also larger than the previous one and has a different base form. New hostile, I repeat, a new hostile!”
Another soldier sharply interrupted, “Tanks and anti-armor personnel are having difficulty in this forest! Helicopter flamethrowers are ineffective as it moves too fast through the trees! We’ll need to resort to large-scale bombing!”
I listened intently for anything else to respond to what he was insisting upon. I didn’t want my town to be destroyed.
“Negative staff sergeant, we cannot proceed with large-scale attacks until military personnel have been evacuated to a safety zone. Target is not stationary.”
I slumped back in my chair, relieved that they weren’t going to resort to that. At least, not yet.
I decided though that I needed to check on Samantha and Kushim.
I went to the door and when I opened it, I saw that she was in the middle of painting him on one of her many canvases. He was sitting on her bed, practically staring daggers at me when I walked through.
“Eh, having fun in here?” I asked with a wide smile.
She looked back at me happily, something that genuinely took me by surprise. She had been so gloomy for so long. She must really enjoy this freak’s company.
“Yeah,” she said joyfully, “I finally have something else to draw about besides glooming cities covered in slime.”
I scratched my head, not really one to be concerned about her art projects because there were much bigger things to worry about. But if it makes her happy, I won’t stand in the way.
“Well we might have to pack up some things and head out of town for a while. This seems to be a little bigger than what we can handle.”
She looked upset, but it was Kushim who spoke harshly, “I am not leaving my forest.”
“Suit yourself, I’m not holding you back. But I’m not about to die for this place.”
“Oh, we both know that’s not the truth. You’ve been wanting to catch other monsters for some time and I already know that you have a different reason. You just want me to lose my home.”
I thought to myself, thought hard about whether or not that’s true. He is the biggest pain for me, but I also kind of don’t want to deal with big creatures without his assistance. Even though he comes off all big and tough, considering that I’ve already seen that there are Primordials stronger than him, I figured he’d still be good enough to deal with them if we came at them as a team. But he’s not one for team play.
“Kushim—”
Suddenly three sharp knocks came at the door. All three of us looked at each other, and quickly we grabbed our weapons. I grabbed my shotgun, Samantha her 9mm with a laser pointer, and well, Kushim is his own weapon.
When I got to the door, I hesitated but another few sharp knocks came and a man’s voice on the other side said, “Open up, I know you’re in there.”
If it was just one of the soldiers, it should be safe. I put my gun down and opened the door. Samantha and Kushim retreated back to her room.”
“Evening sir, are you aware that there was an evacuation order?”
I looked at him, nervous about what to say next. “I wasn’t. I had just gotten back home after going to the nearby woods,”
He had a black face mask, so it was hard to tell how he was emoting. “Down the cliffs?”
I had to lie, “No, no. I was by the railway a little further south of here. It’s not too much of a walk back. I did notice that the streets seemed a little quieter except for all the—”
I nodded towards the sound of gunfire and explosions happening towards the Local Forest Preserve. He seemed to understand what I was saying and said, “Well, that’s the issue going on. You need to evacuate now. Mind if I come in, make sure you pack what you need?”
“Sure, sure, I don’t mind.”
I did mind. I did not want this guy finding out about Kushim.
He looked around my double wide trailer, checking out all of the things that I had collected over the past few months.
“You best start packing buddy. At some point we’re going to have to start authorizing harsher orders.”
He said that so nonchalantly, but for me it was a big deal. I wasn’t about to let this guy hurt Samantha or me, and when I walked over to my room, he followed after.
“So who are you guys and who are you fighting?” I asked.
“Not important, just hurry up.” he ordered.
I noticed that he was starting to grow curious about Samantha’s door. When he wasn’t looking, I quickly grabbed my Taser Strikelight.
“Is there someone in this room?” he asked, appearing to already go for the doorknob.
“Yeah, my daughter,” I said, slowly turning around.
He opened the door right as I was coming up behind him and saw Samantha trying to stuff Kushim into her large backpack.
“WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS THAT!” he shouted, getting ready to pull up his M16. Without a second to lose, I shoved my taser into his neck and pressed the button, sending a horrifying jolt of electricity through his body.
He dropped like a fly and his body was twitching all over.
“Well, I’m guessing we’re going to have to tie him up now.” I said.
Samantha nodded in agreement and Kushim quickly tried to climb out of the backpack. He was not too thrilled that she tried to do that.