Storymania - The Infinity Wars by Frank L Martin

The Infinity Wars
Frank L Martin

The Infinity Wars
    “Well, finally I found you,” a voice complained behind me. “Why in the name of the gods did you come to this plane? Do you have any idea how difficult it was to find you?”.
    I was startled. I hadn’t seen, or heard anyone approaching on this isolated mountain trail where I was resting. I twisted around and found myself face to face with a long, emerald green snake.
    “Erk...” I said.
    “Didn’t you get the call?” it said, its forked tongue flickering in the air. “There’s a gathering coming up. It appears that the confrontation may happen soon.”
    “Ugg...”. My tongue still refused to work. All I could do was stare at the apparition.
    The snake cocked its head. “What’s the matter with you? Why are you staring at me like that?”
    “Um....” I opened my mouth to say something, but my mind was an absolute blank.
    “Well!” The snake hissed. “If all you can do is make rude sounds I am going to leave.” It faded away into nothing. I was left stunned in the warm morning sunlight.
    “That wasn’t very nice, Kane,” came a different voice behind me. After all Hiss did spend a lot of time and effort to find you.” I jerked around to find myself facing a large gray wolf.
    “Galumph,” was all I could get out.
    “My we’re articulate today, aren’t we? We had a devil of a time looking for you. You shouldn’t have gone off like that. After all, I am your familiar. Didn’t you hear what Hiss said? The gathering has started. We’ll be under attack soon.”
    I stared at the wolf’s mouth as it actually formed the words with its lips. “Ah... I mean... uh....” My damn tongue still refused to work. I took a deep breath and finally blurted out, “You aren’t real! I am not seeing green, talking snakes and wolves!” I grabbed up my pack and backed away from the huge wolf.
    “Kane? What’s the matter? The wolf cocked his head. Its piercing, blue eyes actually looked concerned.
    “Ahhhh!” I yelled. “Go away! You’re not real, I say!”
    “Sssomething’s wrong here, Fang,” a sibilant voice said behind me. I jumped and turned around. The snake was back.
    The wolf came over and sniffed me. I grabbed desperately for the pistol I wore on my hip “It’s Kane all right,” it said, ignoring the weapon I pointed at it. “But you’re right, Hiss. Something’s not right here.”
    “More than wrong, Fang. I sense a Souleater here, on this plane. On of us must have dragged him with us when we shifted realities.” The snake faded away again.
    “Damn!” The wolf snarled. “It must have linked with me as I shifted. It sniffed the air and lifted its ears. “Yes, it’s here.” It turned and looked at me. “Kane, we have to get out of here, now!”
    “I’m not Kane,” I said. “I.... Oh God! What am I doing? I’m going crazy!” I felt dizzy. Suddenly the wolf rushed and knocked me off the trail. I rolled down the steep mountainside and fetched up against a tree with the wind knocked out. The wolf bounded after me and plopped down on my chest.
    “Don’t move, Kane. Maybe it didn’t see you,” It growled in my face. I lost the pistol in the tumble and had nothing to fight the animal with. I wasn’t about to try anything with a hundred fifty pound talking wolf lying on my chest. “Turn your head slowly and look up at the trail,” the wolf whispered.
    Dazed as I was, I looked up and saw a dark shadow on the trail where I had been just a moment before. Deep within the shadow, was a shape of a man, a grossly distorted figure that made my skin crawl.
    “Damn!” the wolf snarled. “It knows something is down here. I’ll head it off and lead it away.” It turned and licked me on the nose. “We’ll meet again.” It rose and charged the shadow so suddenly that it was bowled over. The wolf nipped at something and then took off with the shadow after it, moving faster than I could run.
    I staggered to my feet, dazed and bewildered, not to mention scared out of my wits. I must be losing my mind, I thought. Maybe I had a stroke or something. I climbed back up to the trail and retrieved my pistol and pack. I ran back toward my truck, wanting to get to a doctor as soon as possible as I was obviously having a breakdown. About two miles later I collapsed along side of the trail, gasping for breath. I wasn’t more than a half a mile from the trailhead, my truck and safety. Safety from what? I thought. Safety from a talking wolf, a disappearing green snake and a nightmare?
    At that moment the wolf came loping down the trail, “It’s lost our trail, Kane, but it won’t be long before it picks up your essence again. Dammit why isn’t your shield up?”
    “Uh....”
    “Don’t start that again. I don’t know what happened to you, but we have to get out of here. Besides the Souleater chasing you, you’re needed at the gathering. We’re outnumbered as it is.”
    “Listen, Goddamit!” I shouted. “You’re nothing but a figment of my damaged brain. Go away!”
    The wolf looked at me with its sad, blue eyes. “Kane...”
    “Will you stop calling me that? My name is Fred! Fred, do you hear?”
    “Fred, Kane. Whatever you think your name is. That thing chasing you does not give a fig who you think you are. It is after your very life essence and it will not stop till it gets it.”
    There was something in the animal’s tone that struck a chord. Somehow, I knew that I was in danger in some real way, even if I had gone mad. I gave up resisting. I was bruised from the tumble and exhausted from the run. “OK. I still think I‘ve snapped, but that damn shadow thing scared the piss out of me. If you can get me out... away from it, I’ll do as you say.”
    “That’s better,” the wolf said. “Now let’s get out of here.” I got to my feet and pointed down the trail. “My truck is just a mile down the trail. It we can get to it, we can leave that... whatever it is, eating our dust.”
    The wolf stared at me. “You really don’t remember how to travel between realities, do you?”
    “What? What do you mean?”
    “The wolf rolled his eyes and sighed. “Grab my tail and, whatever you do, don’t let go.” He turned and offered his bushy tail. “It’s a good thing you taught me how to do this.”
    “OK,” I said, feeling a bit awkward as I took hold of his bushy tail. Hallucination or not, it felt real, as real as when he was lying on my chest. He started walking down the trail and I followed, holding his tail.
    Suddenly the woods vanished and we were standing in the center of a ring of people and animals. “We’re just in time, Kane,” the wolf growled. “The enemy hasn’t attacked yet.”
    I let go of the tail and looked around at the people. There were about twenty men and women. All had an animal beside them, bears, cats, dogs, various birds, even bats and mice. As we approached, a woman and an elderly man broke from the circle and rushed over to the wolf and me.
    “Fang!” The woman called as she came up. “You brought him back.” The green snake was coiled around her neck. It winked at me. The woman threw her arms around me and kissed me on the lips, a warm, soft, sensuous kiss. She was beautiful, with raven hair and flashing blue eyes. Her figure wasn’t bad either. This craziness has some good aspects, anyhow, I thought.
    She drew back and stared at me. She glanced at the wolf. “What’s wrong, Fang?” She looked into my eyes. “You look and feel like Kane, but....” She let her voice trail off. “Something’s wrong here,” she finished, as the old man came puffing up. A great bear lumbered after him. She turned to him. “Something’s wrong, Del. Kane is.... Well he seems to be Kane, but he’s different somehow.” She turned back to me. “Same energy pattern, but you feel different. What happened to you Kane?”
    “Um... Well, in the first place my name is Fred, not Kane, and I have absolutely no idea what the Hell is happening.” I still felt tingly from her kiss.
    The old man studied me for a long moment. “I’ll be damned!” he crowed. The bear capered around behind him. “Melissa, Kane did it! He made it to the near dimensions. We are....” He was interrupted by a crash of thunder and lightning struck the knoll behind me.
    “It’s started!” Melissa screamed into the sudden wind and darkness that sprang up out of nowhere. “Everyone get to your places!”
    She grabbed my hand and dragged me to a place by her side in the circle just as the darkness completely surrounded us. Fang came up and stood by my side. A ring of fire sprang up just outside the people. In the gloom outside the fire ring I saw hundreds of sickening, shadowy shapes approaching. They were Souleaters, I realized.
    The fire ring blazed higher as the darkness took on an almost liquid form and tried to squelch the flames. Tension mounted and the forces wavered back and forth. In several places the fire was extinguished and the darkness snaked in like the arms of a black octopus. One such arm headed directly for us. I saw the figure of a huge Souleater inside the gloom. Such a hideous face and form I hope I shall never see again. I was paralyzed with fear and loathing.
    Melissa raised her arms and bright flames lashed out at the darkness, burning it away. The thing inside cringed, crumpled and died. Unfortunately there were others crowding in behind and Melissa’s fire was hard put to burn them. Others in the circle were blasting the Souleaters with fire as well. A tentacle of darkness touched my arm and shocked me out of my stupor. It was icy cold. I drew my pistol and fired at the face of the nearest creature. A small dark hole appeared in the creature’s forehead and the back of the head disintegrated. The creature folded up and fell to the ground.
    “My God! What was that noise!” Melissa yelled above the wind. “My ears!”
    I carefully took aim, shot down five other creatures and the arm of darkness faltered and withdrew. I don’t know how long the battle went on after that. I emptied the gun several times, rushing hither and yon, wherever the shadow arms seemed to be overwhelming. Eventually I ran out of ammo and I stood near the center of the ring in despair, while the growing darkness dimmed the remaining fire.
    Just as the fire was at its lowest there came a shot from behind me. I spun around. Lightning flashed, not the blue, sickly kind that was coming from the darkness, but brilliant gold and silver flashes that lit up the surrounding land with a beautiful light. In the flashes I saw hundreds of humans, men and women, appearing in the middle of the circle right next to me. Many of the men had pistols like mine in their hands and they began taking a terrible toll of the Souleaters. Other men and women faced the center of darkness and joined together. They sent a brilliant blast of light toward the abyss of darkness. It was so bright that spots danced before my eyes and it was a few minutes before I could see.
    Abruptly the darkness was gone and we were standing once again in broad daylight. I got a good look at the men then. They were me, hundreds and hundreds of me. I closed my eyes and sat down on the ground. One me came up to me and helped me to my feet. “Well, Kane, or is it Fred. I’m sorry to put you in this mess.”
    It was like looking in the mirror. I would tell you what happened after that, but I can’t. I fainted.
***
    “We knew that there were realities close by ours, but we were unable to enter them, for some unexplainable reason,” Kane said to me, as we were standing on the mountain trail where it all began. Melissa was standing next to him with her arm around his waist. God, she was beautiful. “We were in a pretty desperate situation so I took a chance and put all my power into penetrating the barrier.” He frowned. “I had to use The Word.” I have no idea what the Word is, or was, but from the expression on his and Melissa’s face it seem something fraught with danger. “It worked,” Kane continued, “but it nearly cost me my life.” Kane paused for a moment and stared at the ground. “Apparently this reality is one of the last where I... I mean we exist. In all the other realities we could visit, Kanes, Melissas, Dels... we, didn’t exist.” He shrugged. “I managed to reach you and make a... a.... Well it’s a bit difficult to explain. I used you as a reference point that allowed me to enter other close by realities. There was...is something about you that helped me focus on this. That’s how Hiss and Fang managed to get to you.” He threw up his hands. “I’m not explaining this very well am I? I never intended for you to be drawn into this affair. I wanted to find more Kanes, not Freds, or Franks, or Als, or whatever names you had, but I was... I mean Kanes, were relatively scarce. It wasn’t until I realized that the weapon I...you possessed would work in our reality that I allowed others like you who didn’t have the... the magical training, as you call it, to cross. I also found a number of Melissas and they consented to cross and help as well. When I....”
    I held up my hand. “Please, you’re giving me a headache,” I said. “I’m lost in all the me’s and you’s. I’m just glad I was able to help. I never did see what was in the center of the darkness you destroyed.”
    “Be glad you didn’t,” Melissa said in a quiet voice. “If you think the Souleaters were sickening....” She shook her head. “A nightmare comes to life.”
    “It was destroyed on our plane,” Kane continued. “Unfortunately it exists on many other planes, but we now have the resources to attack it wherever it exists.”
    “What’s to stop it from doing what you did, gather others of its kind and attack you?”
    “A nightmare possibility,” Kane said. “Warfare spread over an infinite of realities.”
    I shuddered. “An infinity war, eh?”
    “Something like that,” Kane said, as he put his arm around Melissa’s waist. “The only thing we have going for us is that the thing isn’t likely to cooperate with others like it for long. It is too power hungry and vile.” Kane paused and frowned. “What I can’t understand is how a soul eater managed to survive in this plane without its maker. Melissa and I find no trace of the shadow here.” Kane sighed and shook his head “I’m not sure what to make of that. Those filth can’t survive long without their maker.” He looked back along the trail and said, “Well, we have to go, Fred. We’ve a job to finish, and, unfortunately, a war to pursue.” With that they vanished and I was left alone in the mountains.
    I returned to my truck and headed for home. As I was driving, I went over in my mind what had happened to me; the war, my part in it, or even how Kane managed to tune in on me especially and why that seemed so important. At that moment the face of an old, white-haired man flashed through my mind and then vanished, leaving me even more bewildered. There was something very familiar about the face but it escaped me. I put the whole thing out of my mind and thought of Melissa, beautiful, sensuous Melissa. Kane is one lucky SOB, I thought. Then it hit me. There’s probably a Melissa on this plane. My heart jumped. Melissa, wherever you are, I’m coming to find you.
    I shut my mind to the possibility of a thing of darkness on this plane as well. Out of mind, out of sight, you know.... I hope.
                     fin.