"Beyond the Campfire Light"
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dochermes"Beyond the Campfire Light"
6/17/1982
I.
Mary Cassidy paused as she spotted the first gleam from the campfire above her on the trail. She leaned on her stout walking stick and checked the luminous hands on her wristwatch. In the moonlight, Mary almost shimmered because she was dressed all in white. The short-sleeved blouse with deep double pockets, snug shorts and stout hiking shoes were all white, and her platinum blonde hair hanging over her shoulders added to the glow. Strapped across her back was a white leather case, cylindrical and three feet long, tapering to a point at one hand. Around her narrow waist, the Unicorn wore a heavy belt with flap pouches and a canteen; at her right hip, the belt supported a holster which carried her favorite Ruger LCP. The small automatic pistol with its six 38 slugs had been reassuring on her long solitary hike up the mountain.
It was ten minutes to midnight. The Unicorn unsnapped a powerful flashlight from her belt and held its cone of light ahead of her as she continued her ascent. This was to reassure the Feldmans up in their camp rather for her own benefit. Her eyes had adjusted to the night and she had been fine without the flashlight. Almost a decade of adventuring in the adjacent realms had sharpened her senses to upper Human limits. As she reached to top of the mountain and stepped out onto a clearing, Les Feldman called out to her.
"Mary? Mary, that HAS to be you. Oh, thank God you came," the old man said. He had a good fire blazing within a circle of rocks, with a tent pitched nearby and a canvas food bag hanging from a tree well up out of reach of prowling animals. Les was a thin man in his late sixties, warmly dressed in sweatpants and a heavy flannel jacket. With his beaky nose and round-rimmed glasses, he was unimposing.
"Hi, Les!" she answered, snapping off her flashlight. "I saw your Jeep at the bottom of the trail. Say, where's your brother?"
"Stan just went into the woods a few minutes ago. I'm a wreck sitting here waiting for him."
"What?" Mary Cassidy peered around her at the thick pines. "Why on Earth would he do that?"
"Because we heard a baby crying," Les said. "Two hours after we set up camp and had made some baked potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil in the fire, a baby started crying in that direction."
The blonde explorer was not a big woman, only five feet four and slim, but she suddenly had an intensity in her voice that made her intimidating. "That can't be right. I'm going to go after him... no, wait, there he is."
Emerging from the darkness to join them was a man who looked very much like Les Belmont, a year or two younger and with a bristly dark mustache. He came into the camp and plopped down on a short log by the fire without a word.
"Stan?" asked Les. "Stan, what did you find? Are you all right?"
It took so long for Stan to answer that Les went over and lowered himself gingerly beside his brother. Just as he was about to repeat his questions, the younger Feldman took a deep breath and spoke in an oddly distant, hollow voice, "I am fine. Nothing is wrong. I found nothing out there."
Hearing that sepulchral tone, Mary Cassidy leaned her walking stick up against a rock and unbuckled the straps of the leather carrying case across her back. She opened its wider end and started to draw the horn from within. "What about the crying baby, Stan?"
"I found nothing out there," he repeated, staring into the fire. "Les, come with me. We need to look around more."
"What, go out there now?" Les said with alarm in his voice. "I don't think so. I'm afraid that we came looking for the paranormal and instead it found us."
Mary held up a gleaming ivory horn just under three feet long. It tapered to a sharp point on one end, the other end was cut flat and covered with a silver cap. In the unsteady flicker of the campfire, the Unicorn horn almost shone. "Stan, do you remember me?"
The younger Feldman brother stared in the flames and didn't answer.
"What is wrong with you?" demanded Les. "We've known Mary for years."
Stepping closer, holding the horn with both hands, the blonde asked, "Stan, what's your middle name?" When she received no answer, she said, "Les, stand up. Now move away, toward me. Whatever that thing is, it's not your brother."
II.
As the thing by that fire stared blankly, Mary Cassidy crouched over and tapped him with the point of the Unicorn horn. It was as if she had used an electric cattle prod. The being that looked like Stan Feldman shrieked and convulsed, rolled over on the ground and leaped up to tear away into the night.
"I don't understand!" Les wailed. "Mary, what's going on? What just happened?"
Holding the ivory talisman in both hands, the blonde woman smiled grimly. "Even by itself in a natural state, a Unicorn horn is a potent talisman against evil. The Unicorn is a holy beast in its way. But this horn has also been blessed by the immortal Eldarin and it has an ensalir cap." She hefted the horn and gripped it midway down its shaft so she could hold her flashlight in her other hand.
Les was trembling visibly, but seeing that Mary was about to go into the woods, he swung around to pick up a Marlin 30-30 from where it had been resting against a tree trunk. "I'm ready."
"Oh, no," she said. "You're staying here. You're the anchor. Listen, Les, when I come back, ask me a personal question. Like, what was the name of the steak house we used to all meet at? Or what was my mother's maiden name? It was Murray, by the way. This way, you'll know it's really me."
"Whatever you say," Les mumbled miserably. "This isn't fun any more. We enjoyed toying with the idea of the supernatural when it was just a game..."
"But now you're on the edges of the Midnight War itself," Mary told him. "Be brave. We're dangerous critters ourself, Les. Don't forget Humans have taken over as dominant species of this world." With that, she took two quick steps away from the fire and vanished into the darkness.
Racing silently through the pine woods, the Unicorn used her flashlight sparingly. She was more angry than afraid, although she knew that the threat of skinwalkers or fleshgaits was very serious indeed. Mary had adventured in a dozen adjacent realms like Okali and Perjena, as well as the jungles and deserts and snow-covered mountains of this world. She had faced many Children of the Night.
It was only recently that she had taken leave of absence from her career to be with her boyfriend and daughter. Ashley was almost two now and she had come to trust David enough to know he would take good care of her. Mary had decided to legally change her last name to Whitaker, David's name, so the three of them would seem more a traditional little family.
Spotting something ahead, the Unicorn slowed and approached cautiously. Stan Feldman was lying on his back on the cold ground, head propped up against the baee of a white birch tree, not moving and with his eyes closed. Mary Cassidy did not immediately rush up to the old man but circled around him suspiciously, listening and sniffing the air. The stench of something long dead was nearby. She clipped the flashlight to her belt so that it was pointing ahead of her. The most important thing was to keep a grip on the horn. The Unicorn knelt by Stan, took his pulse and felt him breathing. The old man was still alive but his skin was cold and clammy.
"Stan?" she whispered. "I don't know if you can hear me. I'm going to get you to safety." Tucking the Unicorn horn under one arm, she crouched and seized Stan under the armpits to begin dragging him across the hard almost-frozen ground. That was the longest ordeal she had endured in years. With both hands occupied, feeling terribly exposed and vulnerable, the blonde woman hauled her friend through the woods for what seemed like hours. Around her were rustlings in the brush and guttural animal noises that sounded too much like her name being called to be dismissed.
Finally, she approached the camp. As she dragged Stan to place him near the warmth of the blazing fire, Mary straightened up and flexed her sore shoulders, taking the horn in both hands again. She looked up to see Les pointing the big Marlin directly at her.
"Oh, lower that muzzle, for God's sake!" she snapped. "It's me. Listen, Stan is still alive but we need to get him medical attention."
In a weak voice that almost cracked, Les Feldman asked, "What was the name of our dog when we first met you?"
Mary laughed. "Princess. She was a gorgeous golden retriever and she lived to be fourteen. Satisfied? Now lower that rifle before you have an accident. We are going to build a skiff to transport your brother down the mountain..."
Her voice broke off and they both froze in position. Just beyond the range of light from the fire, a deer had walked up and was staring at them. The animal seemed horribly diseased, with patches of open sores and mangy fur hanging off in clumps. The stink of death clung to the deer as it watched them.
III.
"Stay by your brother," Mary said to Les. She gripped the horn in both hands, its sharp end pointing toward the apparition. Standing upright, feet well apart, she faced the creature and waited.
The decaying deer heaved up onto its hind legs, standing not like a four-legging animal awkwardly off-balance, but upright as easily as a person. Its eyes were not dark but solid white and seemingly blind.
"That's enough!" Mary Cassidy snapped. "Your kind is old, I know. Before the Darthan Age, you skulked and snuck in the dark places of the world where daylight did not reach. But your time has passed." She raised the talisman overheard and cried out in a clear ringing tone, "With this horn I remove thy power!"
Instantly, the creature fell to the ground with a thump. The deer hide with its attached head peeled away and dropped off to reveal a scrawny old man in a simple loincloth. His bony chest and thin limbs were painted with red arcane symbols. On his wrists and ankles were beaded bracelets. Even as he struggled back up to his feet, the ancient one glowered with murderous hatred in his deepset eyes.
Mary lowered the horn and shifted it to her left hand. "I know your kind. You go by many names in many lands, and you love terrifying your victims before killing them. Well, that's over for you." She drew and fired three shots with her Ruger, the heavy 38 slugs punching home in the old shaman's chest so close together that they made a single hole. The warlock fell over backwards with his feet going up in the air so the bare soles showed for a second.
Walking closer, avoiding the rotting deer hide, Mary took aim and blasted one final shell into the dead man's face. "Always make sure," she said, as if to herself. She ejected the almost empty magazine and clicked a fresh one into place. Turning toward her longtime friend, softening her voice, the Unicorn holstered her gun and asked, "How are you feeling, Les?"
"I'm okay," he answered in a surprised tone. "Actually, I feel much better. I feel like a fog has lifted."
"Glad to hear it. Listen. We are going to cut some branches and tie a blanket between them so we can carry Stan down to the bottom of the mountain. There's a gas station about ten miles from where you guys left your car. We can call for an ambulance from there." She dug around the tent and found a hatchet to use.
Les was kneeling by his brother. "He's breathing okay. Heartbeat is strong. I hope he's going to be all right."
"I think he'll recover," Mary reassured him. "The influence of that shaman is gone now. Back with some medical treatment and surrounded by hard-headed skeptical people, he'll come back to normal."
Les went and got a blanket from their tent. "That was the scariest manifestation I've ever encountered. And now look at it. Just an untreated deer hide and a dead old man."
Mary Cassidy paused to gaze at the corpse where it lay as if had fallen. "Those skinwalkers and fleshgaits are nothing to take lightly," she said. "But let's face it, there's nothing more dangerous on this planet than human beings. There's a reason why we've taken over."
12/19/2016
6/17/1982
I.
Mary Cassidy paused as she spotted the first gleam from the campfire above her on the trail. She leaned on her stout walking stick and checked the luminous hands on her wristwatch. In the moonlight, Mary almost shimmered because she was dressed all in white. The short-sleeved blouse with deep double pockets, snug shorts and stout hiking shoes were all white, and her platinum blonde hair hanging over her shoulders added to the glow. Strapped across her back was a white leather case, cylindrical and three feet long, tapering to a point at one hand. Around her narrow waist, the Unicorn wore a heavy belt with flap pouches and a canteen; at her right hip, the belt supported a holster which carried her favorite Ruger LCP. The small automatic pistol with its six 38 slugs had been reassuring on her long solitary hike up the mountain.
It was ten minutes to midnight. The Unicorn unsnapped a powerful flashlight from her belt and held its cone of light ahead of her as she continued her ascent. This was to reassure the Feldmans up in their camp rather for her own benefit. Her eyes had adjusted to the night and she had been fine without the flashlight. Almost a decade of adventuring in the adjacent realms had sharpened her senses to upper Human limits. As she reached to top of the mountain and stepped out onto a clearing, Les Feldman called out to her.
"Mary? Mary, that HAS to be you. Oh, thank God you came," the old man said. He had a good fire blazing within a circle of rocks, with a tent pitched nearby and a canvas food bag hanging from a tree well up out of reach of prowling animals. Les was a thin man in his late sixties, warmly dressed in sweatpants and a heavy flannel jacket. With his beaky nose and round-rimmed glasses, he was unimposing.
"Hi, Les!" she answered, snapping off her flashlight. "I saw your Jeep at the bottom of the trail. Say, where's your brother?"
"Stan just went into the woods a few minutes ago. I'm a wreck sitting here waiting for him."
"What?" Mary Cassidy peered around her at the thick pines. "Why on Earth would he do that?"
"Because we heard a baby crying," Les said. "Two hours after we set up camp and had made some baked potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil in the fire, a baby started crying in that direction."
The blonde explorer was not a big woman, only five feet four and slim, but she suddenly had an intensity in her voice that made her intimidating. "That can't be right. I'm going to go after him... no, wait, there he is."
Emerging from the darkness to join them was a man who looked very much like Les Belmont, a year or two younger and with a bristly dark mustache. He came into the camp and plopped down on a short log by the fire without a word.
"Stan?" asked Les. "Stan, what did you find? Are you all right?"
It took so long for Stan to answer that Les went over and lowered himself gingerly beside his brother. Just as he was about to repeat his questions, the younger Feldman took a deep breath and spoke in an oddly distant, hollow voice, "I am fine. Nothing is wrong. I found nothing out there."
Hearing that sepulchral tone, Mary Cassidy leaned her walking stick up against a rock and unbuckled the straps of the leather carrying case across her back. She opened its wider end and started to draw the horn from within. "What about the crying baby, Stan?"
"I found nothing out there," he repeated, staring into the fire. "Les, come with me. We need to look around more."
"What, go out there now?" Les said with alarm in his voice. "I don't think so. I'm afraid that we came looking for the paranormal and instead it found us."
Mary held up a gleaming ivory horn just under three feet long. It tapered to a sharp point on one end, the other end was cut flat and covered with a silver cap. In the unsteady flicker of the campfire, the Unicorn horn almost shone. "Stan, do you remember me?"
The younger Feldman brother stared in the flames and didn't answer.
"What is wrong with you?" demanded Les. "We've known Mary for years."
Stepping closer, holding the horn with both hands, the blonde asked, "Stan, what's your middle name?" When she received no answer, she said, "Les, stand up. Now move away, toward me. Whatever that thing is, it's not your brother."
II.
As the thing by that fire stared blankly, Mary Cassidy crouched over and tapped him with the point of the Unicorn horn. It was as if she had used an electric cattle prod. The being that looked like Stan Feldman shrieked and convulsed, rolled over on the ground and leaped up to tear away into the night.
"I don't understand!" Les wailed. "Mary, what's going on? What just happened?"
Holding the ivory talisman in both hands, the blonde woman smiled grimly. "Even by itself in a natural state, a Unicorn horn is a potent talisman against evil. The Unicorn is a holy beast in its way. But this horn has also been blessed by the immortal Eldarin and it has an ensalir cap." She hefted the horn and gripped it midway down its shaft so she could hold her flashlight in her other hand.
Les was trembling visibly, but seeing that Mary was about to go into the woods, he swung around to pick up a Marlin 30-30 from where it had been resting against a tree trunk. "I'm ready."
"Oh, no," she said. "You're staying here. You're the anchor. Listen, Les, when I come back, ask me a personal question. Like, what was the name of the steak house we used to all meet at? Or what was my mother's maiden name? It was Murray, by the way. This way, you'll know it's really me."
"Whatever you say," Les mumbled miserably. "This isn't fun any more. We enjoyed toying with the idea of the supernatural when it was just a game..."
"But now you're on the edges of the Midnight War itself," Mary told him. "Be brave. We're dangerous critters ourself, Les. Don't forget Humans have taken over as dominant species of this world." With that, she took two quick steps away from the fire and vanished into the darkness.
Racing silently through the pine woods, the Unicorn used her flashlight sparingly. She was more angry than afraid, although she knew that the threat of skinwalkers or fleshgaits was very serious indeed. Mary had adventured in a dozen adjacent realms like Okali and Perjena, as well as the jungles and deserts and snow-covered mountains of this world. She had faced many Children of the Night.
It was only recently that she had taken leave of absence from her career to be with her boyfriend and daughter. Ashley was almost two now and she had come to trust David enough to know he would take good care of her. Mary had decided to legally change her last name to Whitaker, David's name, so the three of them would seem more a traditional little family.
Spotting something ahead, the Unicorn slowed and approached cautiously. Stan Feldman was lying on his back on the cold ground, head propped up against the baee of a white birch tree, not moving and with his eyes closed. Mary Cassidy did not immediately rush up to the old man but circled around him suspiciously, listening and sniffing the air. The stench of something long dead was nearby. She clipped the flashlight to her belt so that it was pointing ahead of her. The most important thing was to keep a grip on the horn. The Unicorn knelt by Stan, took his pulse and felt him breathing. The old man was still alive but his skin was cold and clammy.
"Stan?" she whispered. "I don't know if you can hear me. I'm going to get you to safety." Tucking the Unicorn horn under one arm, she crouched and seized Stan under the armpits to begin dragging him across the hard almost-frozen ground. That was the longest ordeal she had endured in years. With both hands occupied, feeling terribly exposed and vulnerable, the blonde woman hauled her friend through the woods for what seemed like hours. Around her were rustlings in the brush and guttural animal noises that sounded too much like her name being called to be dismissed.
Finally, she approached the camp. As she dragged Stan to place him near the warmth of the blazing fire, Mary straightened up and flexed her sore shoulders, taking the horn in both hands again. She looked up to see Les pointing the big Marlin directly at her.
"Oh, lower that muzzle, for God's sake!" she snapped. "It's me. Listen, Stan is still alive but we need to get him medical attention."
In a weak voice that almost cracked, Les Feldman asked, "What was the name of our dog when we first met you?"
Mary laughed. "Princess. She was a gorgeous golden retriever and she lived to be fourteen. Satisfied? Now lower that rifle before you have an accident. We are going to build a skiff to transport your brother down the mountain..."
Her voice broke off and they both froze in position. Just beyond the range of light from the fire, a deer had walked up and was staring at them. The animal seemed horribly diseased, with patches of open sores and mangy fur hanging off in clumps. The stink of death clung to the deer as it watched them.
III.
"Stay by your brother," Mary said to Les. She gripped the horn in both hands, its sharp end pointing toward the apparition. Standing upright, feet well apart, she faced the creature and waited.
The decaying deer heaved up onto its hind legs, standing not like a four-legging animal awkwardly off-balance, but upright as easily as a person. Its eyes were not dark but solid white and seemingly blind.
"That's enough!" Mary Cassidy snapped. "Your kind is old, I know. Before the Darthan Age, you skulked and snuck in the dark places of the world where daylight did not reach. But your time has passed." She raised the talisman overheard and cried out in a clear ringing tone, "With this horn I remove thy power!"
Instantly, the creature fell to the ground with a thump. The deer hide with its attached head peeled away and dropped off to reveal a scrawny old man in a simple loincloth. His bony chest and thin limbs were painted with red arcane symbols. On his wrists and ankles were beaded bracelets. Even as he struggled back up to his feet, the ancient one glowered with murderous hatred in his deepset eyes.
Mary lowered the horn and shifted it to her left hand. "I know your kind. You go by many names in many lands, and you love terrifying your victims before killing them. Well, that's over for you." She drew and fired three shots with her Ruger, the heavy 38 slugs punching home in the old shaman's chest so close together that they made a single hole. The warlock fell over backwards with his feet going up in the air so the bare soles showed for a second.
Walking closer, avoiding the rotting deer hide, Mary took aim and blasted one final shell into the dead man's face. "Always make sure," she said, as if to herself. She ejected the almost empty magazine and clicked a fresh one into place. Turning toward her longtime friend, softening her voice, the Unicorn holstered her gun and asked, "How are you feeling, Les?"
"I'm okay," he answered in a surprised tone. "Actually, I feel much better. I feel like a fog has lifted."
"Glad to hear it. Listen. We are going to cut some branches and tie a blanket between them so we can carry Stan down to the bottom of the mountain. There's a gas station about ten miles from where you guys left your car. We can call for an ambulance from there." She dug around the tent and found a hatchet to use.
Les was kneeling by his brother. "He's breathing okay. Heartbeat is strong. I hope he's going to be all right."
"I think he'll recover," Mary reassured him. "The influence of that shaman is gone now. Back with some medical treatment and surrounded by hard-headed skeptical people, he'll come back to normal."
Les went and got a blanket from their tent. "That was the scariest manifestation I've ever encountered. And now look at it. Just an untreated deer hide and a dead old man."
Mary Cassidy paused to gaze at the corpse where it lay as if had fallen. "Those skinwalkers and fleshgaits are nothing to take lightly," she said. "But let's face it, there's nothing more dangerous on this planet than human beings. There's a reason why we've taken over."
12/19/2016
