The New Assault Page 3

  He stopped a second time before he reached the bottom of the staircase. The base of the mountain was broad. There were many places where he could stop and be alone in the elements before he reached the guards, or, further on, the town. He leapt over the rails of the staircase, feeling almost as young as he was, and began to walk. If felt good to find solace in the quiet between two worlds, the one he’d just come from, the one he called home, and the one that yet awaited him, the one that he could never call home. As he walked along the base of the mountain he fantasized about exchanging the many voices in his head for the soft chirping of the birds in the trees that were scattered about here and there. Here he could trade his awesome weight of responsibility for the light breeze that wafted everywhere around him. It was a breeze that was much warmer, much more hospitable to a life that Sam would’ve preferred to the one he’d been thrust into. But even as he strolled along and felt the comfortable breeze wash over him, he looked around—there were no reliable sources food here, no people, not even his father; no future—and knew in his heart that he could never remain here.

  No matter. Sam had never known a normal life and other than the happiness that he enjoyed thanks to his loving parents, he had never known a happy life. He would simply survive as he always had, whatever that meant. He walked on and continued to struggle to hold the many foreign voices in his head at bay. It was like being surrounded by a thousand muffled stereo systems and trying to find some kind of coherency in the din. Sam had cupped the ears of his mind, so to speak, to soften the noise but now he wondered if he might learn to separate the voices. His father had already assured him that he would have to learn this as well if he were going to be of any use in his new world. He tried, but the more he opened his mind to the voices the more haphazard and reckless they seemed. People, all of them, of every race, of both genders, were a mess on the inside and here he was, trying to separate the messes and make sense of them. Whenever he could make out one voice from another he usually cringed at what it said. Among the men, sex was the prevalent thought in their secret minds. For the vast majority of them it was not only the main focus of their secret selves, but it affected nearly every other thought process as well. Every female on the street was an object of their sexual appraisal, whether to shun or lust after.

  They thought about sex at their jobs, in their homes, and of course on the streets, and everywhere in between. Not the thought of having sex, at least not all of the time, but a consuming fascination with the subject. In some way or another it seemed to fuel every sort of drive for everything else. Women, too, thought about sex more than Sam would’ve expected. Not nearly as much as the men, but still… For them as well, it was not the act that preoccupied them much of the time but things pertaining to it. As men overwhelmingly thought of sex, the women overwhelmingly thought of love. The women, young and old, had one thing in common. They all wanted to be loved. The women in the homes wanted their tireless domestic duties to be respected, admired, but more than all, appreciated. The women in the workplaces wanted to be taken seriously; they too wanted to be appreciated. Every woman, no matter her station of life, wanted to be noticed. These were the proper words for what they wanted but they may’ve been shocked to find, as Sam had, that the images and sensations they carried in their heads were nearly identical to what men really wanted when they thought of sex. And just as the men were willing to do nearly any and everything for sex, the women were willing to sacrifice as much for love.

  Love. Wasn’t sex, at least as it existed in people’s minds, just love on a time clock? So, everyone just wanted to be loved? It was nearly as great a shock to Sam as the vulgarity that also existed in people’s hidden person. So, everybody wanted the same thing. They just gave it different names in their minds. It was then, as Sam was trying to listen, to possibly discover any other discernible rhythms to the mass human mind of the city that he noticed the presence of another mind nearby, and much closer. It was a surprisingly simple mind it would seem—at the moment the mind wanted food and nothing more. It was another shock, after experiencing so many chaotic mental voices to sense a mind so completely devoid of embellishment. This mind wasn’t concerned with the appearance of its owner, it cared nothing for perception, it had only a single, unfettered motivation. food. This new mind was like cool, clear drinking water after a barrage of spiked, sugary sodas. Whatever this mind belonged to, it wasn’t human.

  Sam walked on, in the direction of this strange mind. He was curious. He was still relatively new at this, so even though he heard the voice it was difficult to gauge the exact direction and distance, especially with the voices of the townspeople still present. He didn’t want to scare off whatever it was, especially since it didn’t seem to pose a threat. Once Sam had walked a considerable distance and saw nothing except the same patches of trees and sporadic tufts of foliage, he decided to have a seat beneath one of those trees. He hadn’t passed this way in so very long; to spend a few moments of leisure here couldn’t possibly matter that much. As he sat down upon the grass at the base of the tree he was instantly glad he did. From where he sat, he could only see the very edge of the city, but it was suddenly beautiful. The constituents were still a veritable mess on the inside, but they were living, breathing, human beings. Sam shared at least that much with every one of them. He sat there, enjoying the comfortably warm breeze, and gazing out upon the city, until he closed his eyes one too many times and fell into a light sleep.

  Thankfully, the nightmares didn’t come. It was a good thing but decidedly odd; for the last few weeks or so the dark hands had emerged from the blackness every time Sam closed his eyes to rest. It didn’t matter if he were napping or turning in for the night. Now, it was almost as if something were holding them at bay—his father, perhaps? Whatever the reason, Sam slept and experienced only one thing. Hunger. It was the hunger still pressing that other, foreign mind onward. Even in his sleep, Sam perceived it, almost as powerfully as if the hunger were his own. It was as if someone—or something—were whispering their innermost desire into his ear, faint, but not so faint that he couldn’t clearly understand. Whatever the mind belonged to, it was getting closer. The hunger didn’t grow more ravenous, just closer, until it did spike. Sam’s eyes shot open at the sudden urgency but as he looked around anxiously he saw nothing except the same scattered landscape. But he heard something, a soft breathing like the idle of a large engine, somewhere above his head. He turned his head slowly, cautiously, until he noticed the coarse brown fur of a great leg near his arms. Fear spiked within him and almost instantly, he could feel the fear mirrored in the animal’s mind as well, his own fear whispered into the animal’s consciousness. He looked up finally and found, peering down at him, the great maw of a massive black bear.

  CHAPTER 5

  Sam stared up at the bear, terrified. From his vantage point the animal looked like a great Goliath of destructive muscle towering dangerously over him. The huge bear supported itself with one of its massive paws upon the tree. The paw was already raised and the curved claws extending from it were clear to see. The bear could’ve easily brought that paw down and crushed Sam’s skull. Instead, it just loomed there, staring down at Sam as if it were confused. Its muzzle was partially open and a single large drop of thick spittle eventually dropped onto Sam’s head. It broke him out of his shock. Now that his mind was racing, thoughts that had not been there a second ago clamored for attention. Firstly, he began to listen to the bear’s mind more closely. The confusion in its eyes was from the fear it suddenly felt. Not its own fear, Sam’s, but it didn’t know the difference. It was an animal and all it knew was what it felt. “Don’t be afraid, my son.” Sam heard again in his mind. He listened. There was one thing he had in his favor and that was the fact that this was not the most terrified he had been in his life. The painful death that this massive animal could easily inflict upon Sam was paler than it would’ve been beside what he had already experienced with his father.

  Sam found the presence
of mind to steady his breathing, but his heart still pounded steadily in his ears. He focused in on the bear’s mind. He found an unsettling reality there; the unfortunate byproduct of the diminished fear in his own mind was that the bear was no longer as afraid either. Where the fear receded, the hunger instantly returned in the bear’s simple mind. Just as Sam begin to inch away from beneath the animal, so the bear began to move toward him. Sam could sense in its mind that it was preparing to strike. Sam’s fear began to build again. He knew that was emphatically the wrong answer. With the bear already preparing to strike, fear would only speed it along. Desperately, Sam hushed down the mortal terror fighting to regain control inside him and tried to exude calm into the bear’s mind. He forced himself again to take long slow breaths. “Do not be afraid, my son.” He heard a second time. Sam felt as if his father were right beside him, holding his hand, easing his tension. He wasn’t alone here with this beast. He stood slowly and unsteadily to his feet. He was filled with a renewed determination to see this animal as what it was, an animal, and not the instrument of his imminent demise. He reigned in the hunger within himself and with it, the bear’s own.

  The bear lowered itself onto its paws. Sam could read in its mind that it had expected him to run and it was prepared to give chase. Now, though, it just looked on, almost placidly. Sam remained where he was. Retaining any measure of calm required his full attention. Especially because he knew that he could not outrun this animal. The bear, mollified beneath the influence of Sam’s mind, stretched a paw forward and gave Sam’s body a gentle nudge. Then another cautious nudge, a little less gentle. It was enough to cause Sam to stumble to the side, but he regained his footing and stood his ground. The bear sniffed at him loudly and then, with a final look, turned and began to lumber away into the distance. It wasn’t until the beast was completely out of sight that Sam allowed his legs to turn to jelly and collapse beneath him until he lay upon the naked ground, exhausted, like a deflated balloon. An eternity later, when he was able to sit up, he felt exhilarated. He had just cheated death! His limbs still quaked with the tension of it, but he was alive! There was a bitter sweet thrill to it. He felt like a new man, empowered, ready to perform the impossible.

  Then the voices returned at full volume and reminded him that he still had daunting responsibilities to attend to before he could even attempt the impossible. By the time he stood to his feet he felt humbled. He walked on with an easier, more confident stride, not strutting, but not stumbling either. Suddenly, he heard his father’s voice in his head, “You can’t imagine how proud I am of you.” It startled Sam, but only for a moment, like someone quietly sneaking up on him.

  In his mind, Sam positively beamed in the light of his father’s compliment. He knew he didn’t need to say anything. His father could read the elation in his mind. “So, the bear thing was a test? I though it might’ve been.” Sam answered. It was true. Sam had had a striking suspicion that Geoffrey had something to do with that very … interesting encounter. It was probably the only reason the animal didn’t rip him limb from limb and make lunch of him immediately on contact.

  “Not a test, exactly…a lesson.”

  “A lesson?”

  “You saw how simple and direct the bears mind was…” it wasn’t a question “and how brutally focused.” Also true. The bear wanted only food, nothing more, but it would’ve used anything to sate that hunger. Even Sam. “You must always remember the bear when you are dealing with the minds of humans. You must always remember that in these houses of flesh we are all animals. Reasoning animals, many of us, but animals. Stripped of all our preamble and pride we are just like the bear, searching for love, needing it, as the bear needed food. The appearances may be different, the circumstances will vary, but you must never forget that beyond the façade, beyond the excess of pretense, you are dealing with the minds of lambs and goats, wolves and sheep. Animals, every one of us.”

  “Animals.” Sam whispered into the mountain air. From his uniquely inside experience of people’s minds it sounded dead on. Or, it should have. Experiencing the chaos that existed in every person’s mind as he had, Sam could’ve easily thought of them—and, unfortunately, himself—as beasts. Civilized and cultured as far as the rest of the world could see but beasts behind it all, one and all. Now that he had encountered a real beast, however, he wasn’t so sure. The bear’s thoughts were much more succinct than any of the humans of the city. Including his own. Just like everyone else, he’d had a great deal of confusion in his own head even before Geoffrey had taught him to experience the confusion in other people’s minds.

  There had been no confusion in the bear’s mind. In fact, it had only experienced confusion when Sam had touched its mind with his own. Otherwise, the beast had been refreshingly single-minded in its purpose and it had been much easier to deal with because of it. The more Sam pondered the paradox, the less convinced he was that the bear was really more dangerous than a human being. Sure, the bear might’ve been stronger and less tamed by societal norms but there was one extremely pertinent thing that it wasn’t. Devious. It didn’t plot, it didn’t scheme. It held no capacity for the elaborate tricks of man. That alone made it less dangerous, no matter its brute strength or lack of etiquette, Sam decided. “You have deduced well, my son.” Geoffrey conveyed into Sam’s mind. This time his father’s telepathic voice did not startle him. He had sensed Geoffrey’s mental presence, like hearing the gentle breathing of someone standing just over his shoulder. “You will do well indeed…you will make better decisions than I did.” Sam didn’t respond, only listened more carefully. Just as he had sensed his father’s mental presence he could now sense a subtle urgency, as well as a subtle falter, in his father’s mental voice. It sounded as if Geoffrey were moving a great distance away from him.

  He cleared his mind and closed his ears to the thoughts of the townspeople, so that he might give his father his full attention. He stopped walking and remained where he stood. “Your mother and I have always loved you dearly, my son” Geoffrey said. His mental voice sounded as if it would be too far away to hear, soon. Then images began to flash in Sam’s brain. He saw himself, a newborn child, frail, small, bawling at the top of his lungs. His entire tiny person was again shrouded in a vague halo, as if he were an angel and not a screaming little human being. He saw images of himself as he grew larger and screamed less, but the miasma never left. From his mother and father’s eyes he had never ceased to be an angel from heaven. He experienced the overwhelming love his parents had always had for him, like the energy of an exploding star, yet somehow as gentle as the warm glow of a single candle. He watched himself grow from that newborn into the young man he was today from both of his parent’s perspectives, and then, when his mother was no more, through his father’s eyes alone. He felt his parent’s affection wash over him like an entire ocean over a pebble. It was difficult for him to believe that such an intense love could exist for a single person. It was nearly too much to bear.

  Then the sensations faded slowly from his mind and he gasped for breath. He immediately noticed that the comfortably warm breeze was cooler upon his cheeks and when he lifted an unsteady hand to touch his face he realized that two steady streams of tears were the reason. Even now he was crying. He couldn’t stop. The tears weren’t from anguish but from awe. The love his parents had held for him since the first day he was born was like looking into the face of God. He wondered that he could feel anything after that, as he would’ve wondered that he could see anything after gazing into the unapproachable light that was the Almighty. But he did feel, and much more acutely. It wasn’t until he could contain himself that the sensations returned. Not of love for him, now, but of his mother. His father’s love for his mother. Unbelievable as it was, it outshone even his love for his son, even now, after so many years beyond his wife’s death. The tears really started flowing from Sam’s swollen eyes now. His father’s love for his mother only reminded him how much he, too, desperately missed her.

&nb
sp; It just wasn’t fair that she should’ve been taken from him and this crushing responsibility come to assume her place. The tears were also for Sam’s father. How had he survived all these years with such an unquenchable love for a woman who was no longer there. “Your mother is not lost.” Geoffrey answered inside Sam’s head. “That is how I have survived, to remain here until the right time, until I shall cast off this prison of flesh and be with her again. Just as what you see of people is only a façade, a delicate lie, so this entire world is a kind of lie. It is not our home. Your mother has not been stolen from us, she has only returned home before us…I shall go home to be with her very soon.” Geoffrey’s voice was fading to a tiny whisper, “Remember what I have showed you. You’ll need it in the coming days. Remember that your mother and I love you more than I have the power to convey. Remember that we are proud of you. Most of all, my cherished son, remember to not be afraid. If you never quit, you shall find your path … and you shall find us.” And like a breeze in a windstorm, his father’s voice faded to nothingness.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sam’s heart was broken. He felt as if his precious life blood were flowing freely from it, draining his existence of all relevance. But the tears would no longer flow from his eyes. He had none left to cry. He chuckled dryly to himself. He had cried himself dry when he’d realized how much he had meant to his parents, and now he had no tears left to shed now that both of them were …