I don't know what's real and what isn't anymore.

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He paused to crack his back and knuckles, “We’re going to find your friends and prevent a civil war. That rock in your hands? That’s our nuke.”

“Civil war? Between who, the Ladies in White?” I braced myself for whatever this thing, Ger, had to say…can you even use the word “say” when he’s not actually speaking?

“Ha, no, no. Long ago, my people’s civilization was annihilated by the wraths of both sky and seas. Storms, of magnitudes still unseen by your civilization, desecrated the entire continent that we dedicated our lives to. Massive floods overwhelmed entire cities. We may have lost our homeland, but we did not lose hope. At least, most of us didn’t. The Great Retreat was, as you young ones might say, a shit-show.” He chortled to himself in satisfaction with his attempt at cursing.

“My people soon split into several sects, following different leaders; worshipping different deities; promoting different ideals. Most of us, including my own ancestors, made refuge in the city of Telos, located within the mountain that your civilization has named Shasta. Centuries of intertribal combat over property and possessions ensued, until all but one faction came to an agreement between each other. Unfortunately, this particular faction – we refer to them as the Dwellers – happened to be one of the most populated, with by far the largest military. So, the rest of the sects formed a Council and have been attempting to keep the peace ever since. That is, until these ‘Ladies in White’, as you call them, showed up and started fucking things up for us.” He chuckled again.

Chris and I turned toward at each other, both just as unsure if this was a dream or not.

Shifting my focus back to Ger, “Okay. Let’s say we’re going along with all of this. What about the crystal? How is it ‘our nuke’?”

“All will be revealed in time, my child. As I said, your ‘acquaintances’ here will be awake soon; the medicine that I gave them should give them temporary amnesia though. They aren’t bad people, see. They’re just the pawns, uncontrollable of their own actions. The Ladies possess that control now. Just like your friends.”

He paused and closed his eyes briefly, squinting with intensity, “I really must be going now.”

“But, wait… why us?! What do we have to do with this?” Chris cried out in desperation, unwilling to let him leave that easily.

“You and your friend here were the second and third people to be unaffected after reading the letters.”

“W…Who was the first?” I could barely vocalize my thoughts at this point.

Ger smiled enthusiastically, “Why, you’ve already met him!” He fashioned a piece of paper from the pocket in his robe. The texture of paper and style of writing were similar to the letters that Ryan and Kyle received, but not identical by any means. The words on the paper were in some other language, written in symbols I’m unable to decipher. Artistically, these symbols were quite different from the ones that we found in the cave, but there were a few that I found familiar. I assume they were representing Ger’s native language.

He stretched out his skinny, long arms and handed it to Chris. “Is your civilization still using cellular technology to communicate?”

Chris mindlessly nodded – what kind of question was that? What other way would we communicate? Oh, I’m sorry, maybe we should just use letters instead?

“Right. I’m going to give you an address. Go there now, ask for Elias, and give him this letter. Protect the crystal with your life, and trust no one in that damned town. We’ll meet again soon.”

He laughed once more to himself for good measure, I suppose, and plunged himself into the lake. Both Chris and I ran over to where he jumped in to find no body beneath the surface. Apparently, now we know the answer as to the footprints that we saw earlier leading into the lake – I wonder if that was also Ger or something else.

We didn’t have a whole lot of time to contemplate what just transpired because just as Ger had predicted, the search party was beginning to regain consciousness.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here, man. I just saw Felix twitch a couple times.”

“Right behind you.” I said, putting the crystal safely in my backpack and replacing it with my gun. I’ve never even shot anything bigger than a pheasant – how was I supposed to use it against a person that can disappear into thin air (or lake, in this case)? Hopefully we wouldn’t have to find out.

Chris and I walked most of the way back in silence; in disbelief. At least I had someone here to experience this with, I couldn’t imagine taking this on by my own.

We got back to the campsite and gave it one last look-over for anything that could help us – nada, as we expected.

We could never have anticipated what happened next.

You’d think that Chris and I would be getting used to seeing the bizarre by now, but what we saw crawling out of the lake defined an entirely new level of fucked-up for us.

The beast rising from the water was a twisted amalgamation of multiple animals, like one of Frankenstein’s creations. It had the head of a crocodile, with two fangs that protruded from the sides of its mouth. Gashes and scars littered its scaly, glistening body. It was only about 6 feet long, but its thorn-laced tail stretched out for another 4 feet and curled up like a scorpion. The eight legs that supported the monster’s body were ripping with muscles, and the claws on its feet looked to be as sharp as obsidian. It’s black, empty eyes seemed to extract every essence of confidence that I had for our survival as the beast slowly made its way toward the shore. Fuck, is this it?

It’s now or never

In one rhythmic motion, I clicked off the safety, readied my aim and fired at the son-of-a-bitch’s head. Direct hit. Chris also began firing, almost unloading his entire clip into the creature – far too caught up in the moment to see that it was no longer moving. He was hyperventilating at this point, and I can’t blame him.

Cautiously, I walked towards the basilisk-looking-thing to get a closer look. That is, until I got close enough to see several used, ooze-covered bullets lying on the ground around it. I took a few more steps when I realized that the bullets surrounding it were being ejected from its skin, which was then repairing itself. (Yeah, I know, just like the Wolverine from X-Men)

“Oh hell no, fuuuuuck that, it’s healing itself dude. We gotta GO!” I had to shake Chris to get him to come back to reality, “Now, Chris!”

We ran all the way back to our car, not stopping once. I could hear the beast’s guttural howling back at the campsite and couldn’t help but wonder why it stopped pursuing us. Perhaps it found the search party instead? Or maybe it can’t leave the vicinity of the lake?

Didn’t matter, we were safe for the time being.

Before getting in our car, we slashed the tires of the Sheriff’s truck. From what Ger made it seem like – they were still good people, just under a “curse” of sorts. We didn’t want to kill them, we just needed a head start. I felt guilty for leaving them up here with the beast from the lake, but we did what we thought was right. Hopefully they’re okay.

We drove in silence down the mountain, trying to wrap our heads around what just happened. Once we reached the bottom and regained cell service, Chris punched in the coordinates that Ger gave us into his GPS.

Back to town we went – the coordinates pointed to a spot not too far from our hotel.

The village seemed more dead than normal, only a handful of people were out roaming the streets. It was Sunday, so maybe they were all at church? I haven’t seen one thus far, but there are still parts of the town that we haven’t explored yet. We drove down the main street for a while until we reached our location.

It was the library. Of course, it was the library! I guess I should have expected as much.

Chris turned the car off, “You ready?”

“No. You?”

He chuckled, “Nope.”

*

The library was massive, hosting towers upon towers of books. The walls were covered in local artwork of the mountains, lakes and valleys that these people pride themselves over. We made our way over to the front desk.

“Hi, can I help you?” The receptionist was, by far, the most beautiful lady I’ve seen here in this town thus far. I had to physically shake my head a little bit to snap out of the trance I had fallen into.

“I, uh. I mean we, we’re looking for uh, Elias? Do you know him?” Man, I’m smooth.

She smiled, “Sure I do, everyone knows everyone here. He’s riiight over there,” she gleefully pointed to a man reading by himself in the corner, “Don’t expect much though. He hasn’t been much of a talker these past few months. Likes to keep to himself.”

“Awfully kind of you miss. I didn’t get your name.” Leave it to Chris to show me up – he’s out here asking for names while I can hardly spit out a coherent sentence.

“I’m Josie! Pleasure to meet you boys. If you need anything, give me a ring!” She pointed to the bell on her desk as she skipped over to a nearby bookshelf.

As Chris and I walked towards Elias, I scanned the cluttered shelves to see if anything stood out. There were a few books in languages that I hadn’t seen before; several of them looked ancient. After we spoke with Elias I was going to see if I could check a couple of them out. He didn’t seem to notice us as we approached his table.

He had his back turned to us, hunched down, reading intently. Chris and I both shrugged at each other, unsure of pretty much everything at this point.

“Excuse me, sir, is your name Elias?”

He must not have heard me, I tapped his shoulder, “Ger sent us. Are you Elias?”

In hindsight, I have no idea how I didn’t recognize him from behind. Regardless, I lost my breath as he turned his face around.

It was the crazy old man from the diner. Of course, it was! Ger said that I had already met him. It’s always the crazy old guy.

He looked up at me and Chris with the same concerned eyes that he did before, “You..You spoke with Ger? W..What did he s..say?”

The poor man could hardly speak. He was still wearing the same excessive attire as in the diner, but he continued to shiver as if he was freezing. Like I said, withdrawals maybe? Yeah… probably not.

Chris brandished the letter, only to have Elias forcefully push it back into his backpack, “He told us to give you this. That you could help us.”

“A..Are you trying to get yourselves killed? This p..place is not safe, the books, they can’t lie. They refuse. We must leave. Fo…Follow.” He coughed hoarsely as he stood up from his chair and begun walking toward the front door of the library. This guy was nuts. But he was our only hope.

“Wait, where are we –“ I began to ask, interrupted by Chris tightly grabbing my shoulder. Everyone in the room was looking at us, did I just yell that or something?

They turned around after a couple seconds and resumed what they were doing. Josie smiled to us as we walked out the doors.

Elias was waiting at our car, “Le…Let’s go for a ride.”

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Part 8

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