The Depths of Dread

The lake buried deep in the woods cast an icy fog that clogged its labyrinth guardian of ash and elm with dense mist. The last, dying motes of daylight fled, and a blanket of black rushed overhead to fill the void, hiding any light that dared shine. But three, silver fire pits cast a meager scarlet through the grove as they vomited their noxious fumes.

Jodi stood centered among them—naked and exposed, choking back the wet cough that plagued her. Bumps raised across bare skin, and the dim reds only deepened the shadows of bones that bided their time to break from her frail form.

The Keeper drifted around her like a cowled vulture, mists parting around each step of thread-worn, ebon robes. His watchers—the cult guarding her only glimmer of hope—circled in shadow like faceless wraiths, droning monotone chants in primal tongues.

Jodi stiffened, swelling her chest and clenching fists by her side. The chanting quickened, rising to a crescendo. Her chin lifted defiantly as the Keeper stopped, turning to face her.

Reds danced across the gold collar marking him more than his peers. It stained his wiry, white beard a deep crimson and sent shadows skittering across scarred skin beneath his cowl. The charred pits that once housed his eyes peered into her soul. His wraiths fell silent and stepped back, rejoining the forest darkness.

“Sit,” he said, pointing to a log with a skeletal finger.

Flames ignited before the log as turned and drifted toward the tree line. “We must discuss what we have learned.”

Jodi wavered, her knees buckling beneath her. “Shawn…”

Shawn pushed from the elm on which he leaned and rushed toward her. Before he took a full step, she stiffened and said, “Bring my clothes.”

Shawn froze. He turned and took the wadded pile, slowly shaking his head. “At least these guys put on better show than the last one,” he said he handed them off. “Where did you find them?”

“I had to dig deeper. The last were bigger frauds than the doctors.” Jodi seized an oversized shirt and pulled it on as a wracking fit of coughs hit.

“They are all frauds, Jodi,” Shawn said, “and we keep going from one to another. I’m tired of false promises.”
“I found stories about him on the dark web. The Keeper has real power. He—”

“He’ll take our money and fix with herbs and chants what none of the doctors could,” Shawn said, slumping on the log with a sigh. “I know we said we would fight this… but we don’t have much time left together.”

“And I should spend it in bed on a morphine drip?”—her voice turned to ice— “You can walk away if your ready to quit. But I’m not that lucky… and it’s my money too.”

“You know that’s not what I—I would give anything to see you better. But I think we’ve reached the end of the line."

“I’ll cross that line, and any other,” she said, sitting beside him. She glared at the fire, crossing her arms. “I said I would beat this. I’m not ready to give up.”

“Spoken like so many that have sought me,” the Keeper said, entering the firelight.

Two of his porters followed, one to his right and the other to his left. They stood as he sat opposite of Jodi and Shawn, across the fire. “The body withers, the cord fades… yet so many seek to stretch their time.

“It can be done… but the price is steep,” he said, raising his head and turning empty sockets to Shawn— “and requires you both.”

Jodi shot Shawn a frigid look and said, “We’ll pay it… whatever it is.”

Shawn hung his head. The grove fell silent, leaving only the crackle and pops of the fading fire.

The Keeper gave a slow nod and said, “Then the bargain is struck.”

The fire flared, shifting to a deep purple. “Sheol. Niflheim. Annwn,” the Keeper said in a rasp. “Every culture whispers of an underworld—a land for the dead, separated from flesh. Worlds upon worlds rest beyond our reach… but points of power thin the veil between them.

“This forest holds the most powerful point. It hides the way to the pool of souls from which all life stems, bound by a silver cord and cast to the realm of flesh until called home.

“A drink from this pool restores the flesh.”

A porter stepped from behind the Keeper, his features cloaked by his cowl. Desiccated hands, shriveled and dry, stretched forth a stone bowl etched with alien scribbles.

“And you just happen to have this magic water on tap?” Shawn said with a smirk.

The Keeper gave a scowling grin. “You expect the tricks of a sideshow charlatan, mocking forces beyond what you imagine. I once did as much.”

Jodi shot from her seat, wrenching the bowl from the porter’s hands.

“Jodi, wait,” Shawn shouted as she gulped.

She staggered. Her hands spasmed, locking her grip on the bowl as a viscous, black goo sloshing over the lip. Her eyes widened. A milky-white film glazed over them. She sagged in an unmoving heap.

Shawn dropped to her side. “What did you do to her?” he cried as he pried the bowl from her hands.

“You were warned that the pool lies beyond the curtain of death,” the Keeper said. “The tonic freezes the body between breaths for a time, tricking your cord into drawing you through the veil. The effects are temporary… if you succeed.”

Shawn looked at the thick ooze, still swirling within the bowl. “Peachy,” Shawn said, lifting it to his lips.

“Many lose their life attempting what you try,” the Keeper said, lowering his cowl. “She fears the cord’s pull, but why do you risk such a sacrifice?”

Shawn lowered the bowl and looked at the lifeless heap beside him. “Whatever comes… I won’t let her do this alone.”

A moment of silence passed as the Keeper seemed lost in an unspoken memory. “You may be strong enough to do what so many could not,” he said. “I will do what I can to help.”

Shawn sipped.

Goo crawled down Shawn’s throat, burning like licorice-flavored turpentine. His body locked, and taloned tentacles swarmed the edges of his vision, shredding at reality. The ground fell from beneath his feet.

Ink exploded from every pore as he plummeted, slithering across his skin—itching as if he donned a garment too small. He tried to scream, but no sound escaped. It had crept into his lungs, crushing out air as the abyss swallowed him.


Shawn woke on his back, lying in a bed of cold ash that covered the ground like fallen snow and gasping. “What the—” he said.

Ash hung suspended above him, as well, refusing to fall.

“I told you he had power,” Jodi said, standing beside him without looking his way.

She looked stronger, but she sobbed, her chest heaving. All color had fled her skin, as if she had stepped from a black-and-white movie, and a grey ribbon, frayed and full of black rips, drifted from her scalp. She stared down the dark path it followed.

“Because you never see weird stuff after drinking something in the woods offered by strange men,” Shawn said, grabbing his head and wincing as he stood.

A silky strand pulsed beneath his touch, humming a siren’s song as it drifted before him—weaving and snaking the dark path to pillar of silver light.

The surrounding trees seemed unnatural. Broken trunks jutted from the blanket of ash at awkward angles, and limbs fractured out like skeletal sores. But the pillar blazed over the forest, towering over the tree line and rocketing above the silhouettes of distant mountains before splitting into a shifting web of countless strands that streaked and faded across the sky.

Shawn staggered forward, but Jodi grabbed his shoulder.

“You feel it calling, too,” she said. “The silver cords… ready to call absent souls back to the pool. It leads to death… or life, if I’m strong enough to do what I have to.”—she took his hand and turned his face to hers, her head bowing— “I’m glad you came. I can’t do this without you.”

Shawn ratcheted his head back and forth. “I wouldn’t… let you,” he said brokenly, “You look better.”

“A promise of what’s to come,” she said, smiling. She spread her arms and spun like a model on a catwalk, grey ribbon twisting above her head. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder— “If her weakness doesn’t stop me.”

Shawn turned.

They stood at the edge of the grove—or a replica of it. The color had drained from everything. There was only varying depths of dull blacks and muted greys, and nothing more than the light of the pillar lit it.

The Keeper sat motionless on his log. Scarred skin had fallen away, leaving a polished, grinning skull. Orbs of silver—like that of the pillar—burned in the sockets. His robes had grown darker, and the glimmer of his collar had gone. His hands rested, palm up, in his lap—a dagger upon them as if in offering.

A parody of the fire struggled to burn before him. Shadowy images, outlined in silver and casting no light or heat, flashed from flare to flare, strobing with no transition between… but Shawn stooped to examine the two sputtering figures piled beyond it.

He and Jodi—or doppelgangers made of static—slumped in a pool of ooze, the bowl tipped between them. The doubles winked in and out of sight, wedged between worlds.

“They are like echoes,” Jodi said, “memories of who we were… are. I feel like I’ve never been sick… but I can feel it eating away at her. We… I don’t have much time.”

Rustling rose from the void around the grove. Shawn stood, snagging the dagger from the Keeper and pulling Jodi. One hand stayed on her, keeping her behind him as he pivoted—scanning the grove. The other kept the dagger raised.

An echoing growl rumbled in darkness.

A hand-shaped void broke the tree line, sucking in dull greys and swallowing anything resembling light. Taloned fingers bit into the bark of a slanted tree rising next to the path where Shawn’s silver cord wafted. A slender, stilted leg pushed into sight, vanishing as soon as it entered as summoned shadows slithered to embrace it. The pillar of silver plumed past the void, but the abyss crept closer.

The hand fired from the darkness, claws shredding Shawn’s shirt and raising black stains across his chest. He screamed, slashing at the beast’s arm. The dagger caught nothing, yet the attempt tugged Shawn’s silver cord through the darkness.

A sizzling brand of white seared into hidden flesh, and an agonized howl rang from the abyss. The creature retreated deeper into the path.

“That seemed to hurt it,” Shawn said. “I’ll draw it in… distract it… you run to the pool.”

“No!” Jodi snapped, her voice trembling. Her nails bit into his wrist. “I need you with me.”

Shawn nodded without turning from the threat, the shadow already slipping back toward the grove.

“The cords connect us to the pool,” Shawn said, sliding the dagger into the waist of his pants. “But there has to be other ways to reach it.” He darted down another path, dragging Jodi behind him.

The creature bellowed. Tree trunks splintered as the beast ripped them from its way, charging after Jodi and Shawn.

Ash slapped against Shawn’s face like sandpaper. The gashes in his chest throbbed, and razor-like briars reached from the darkness to tear chunks of his flesh. Light pulled from the path, drawing back toward the beast and releasing every root in the labyrinth. Thundering steps pounded behind them. Each one carried it closer. The beast paused, bellowing a deafening roar that reverberated through the woods.

A cacophony of howls echoed back.

Shawn took every turn he saw, whipping around corners to interrupt the hunt, but the skeletal branches looming overhead became so thick that even light from the pillar faded. The only sliver burned behind them, guiding their pursuer.

Approaching beasts created a din of chaos that made no way seemed safe. Shadows shifted and skittered like swarming bugs, creating paths where none existed and disguising those that did. Jodi stumbled. Her grip had grown colder, and it slipped from his.

Shawn stopped, his silver cord tugging at head as he crouched.

“You know,” he said, between panted breaths, “there is a good chance we wake up in the woods at any second with headaches and our wallets missing.”

He looked over his shoulder at Jodi, but darkness had consumed her. No more than the tattered, grey wisp drifting into the abyss hinted she remained.

“I don’t know the way anymore,” she whimpered. “We have to go back.”

Shawn lifted her into an embrace, squinting down the dark road they had traveled—his faint light floating above it. “There’s no hope back there. We have to keep moving forward…”, he said, turning back to the blindness ahead.

Shawn stepped, and the cord tugged sharply at his head, almost jerking him from his feet. It snapped forward like a rubber band, blazing toward the ground and lighting a tunnel to his left, previously hidden in shadows.

“He never said the pool is in the forest,” Shawn said, hope in his voice. “He said it hid it.”

The cord burned brighter with every step, its song driving him forward. Right. The tumult of the pursuing beasts faded above them. Left. The walls thinned, exploding into a vast cavern of light—roots reaching from a roof of packed earth. Right.

Shawn found himself on a narrow platform with nowhere left to turn, skidding to stop and pebbles pushing over the edge. The pillar burned before him—countless souls of brilliance, wriggling and writhing, entwined in a blinding beam of silver that geysered through the roof of cave.

“No!” he shouted, falling to all fours and peering over the edge.

The stony platform hung in space, suspended from above the pool with no way down. The pillar fountained from a vast pool that seemed to stretch an eternity in all directions. Ethereal figures darted through waves of luminance like ghostly mermaids, dancing through waters of pure light far below.

“I knew the minute I got here,” Jodi growled. “Only the dead can reach the pool, but there is a way to drink.”

A broken tuft of black drifted above her head. “It was like a whisper mocking me in the back of my mind.”

Clouded, grey eyes glared at Shawn, squinched tight in a scowl. “But I wasn’t ready to give up…”—tendrils of black slithered across her face like a sickness— “You were.”

Shoulders widened, and her back stretched as the darkness washed over her. Her body twisted, growing and contorting. She loomed over him. Limbs doubled in length, unfolding as knees pushed forward and elbows shoved back—hunching her body as if ready to spring.

“I warned there was no line I won’t cross,” she said.

Her face extended, jutting her jaw down. Row upon row of razor-like fangs distorted her words. Hands that were no longer human, stretched and taloned, lunged, seizing Shawn’s silver cord just above his scalp. “And why else would I need you?”

The grip was suffocating, a chokehold that stole spirit as well as breath. Slivers of black slipped into Shawn’s cord, fading his light as it forked toward the pillar. “I’m sorry,” he said, grabbing her wrist in one hand and drawing the dagger with the other. “But this isn’t you.”

Shawn slashed and stabbed, plunging the dagger over and over at ebon flesh. Shadow wisped around the blade. His attacks slowed, and her darkness edged closer to the pillar of light.

Shawn’s arm fell limp at his side. “Whatever comes,” he said weakly, his arm falling limp at his side. “You won’t do this alone.” He thrust the dagger upward.

Shawn’s cord severed.

The rupture exploded in a burst of light and heat. Jodi and Shawn, both, screamed. Light shredded shadow from her body, and his flesh seared. The blast launched her back and sent her careening off the platform as his eyes turned to liquid in the sockets.

His world went dark.


“I’ve sworn to protect it,” the Keeper said. “I would have broken your ties to the pool before either of you could taint its waters. Your light cleansed her, but you’ll never hear the call to rest without your connection to the pool… an eternal outcast to, both, life and death.”

Shawn sat by the lake in silence as waves lapped against the shore. Wisps of shadows escaped in the breeze from those that draped him like robes. The fire before him—only a flickering shadow, outlined in silver when glimpsed through the silver spheres now acting as his eyes—crackled and popped but offered little warmth… but the cold fog drifting over the lake soothed charred flesh.

“She’ll find peace now that she has returned to it. She may even, one day, return refreshed. There will always be those that resist the cord’s pull, afraid to face what come next, and you have seen the monsters fear creates… in this world and the next… when someone resists the pull past their time.”

The glow of the fire lit the interlocked tendrils of darkness and light that wrestled over Shawn’s flesh.

“I stop those that I can or trap them beyond the veil, but, if any reach the pool, all lives to come are poisoned. It isn’t fair to cut lives short, but…”

Shawn rose. Silver orbs flared in their sockets, and the dagger blazed in his hand. “Death is, neither, fair nor unfair,” he said, “and there are monsters to stop.”