Brian Keene - Ghost Walk

“Hold up,” Maria interrupted. “The Labyrinth? As in the minotaur and King Minos?”

“No,” Levi said, “although I guess it could be the source of that old myth. The Labyrinth is sort of a dimensional shortcut between different worlds and realities. It weaves through time and space—nowhere and yet everywhere all at once. It connects to everything via a series of dimensional ‘doors.’ This is how the Thirteen travel between worlds. How they traverse the dimensions. And how some humans have traveled, as well. Normally, the only time we see the Labyrinth is when our spirit has departed our body. But there are ways to pass through it while still alive. You just have to know how to open one of the doorways. That’s what Nelson LeHorn did.”

“He traveled to another dimension?”

Levi shrugged. “Possibly. Another dimension. Another Earth.”

“An alternate reality?”

“Exactly. There are many different Earths—mirror versions of our own world with alternate versions of ourselves. On one of them, you might be just like you are now. On another, maybe you’re the first female president of the United States.”

“Freaky. You’re talking about string theory, right?”

“String theory?”

“Yeah, you know. Different dimensions stacked up against each other like membranes?”

“Is that what the scientists call it?”

Maria nodded.

Levi smirked. “They have no idea. And even if they did figure it out, they wouldn’t know how to stop what’s happening. The Thirteen seek to destroy all of these Earths—and all of the other alternate worlds, as well. They’ve sworn to destroy anything created by God. After all, he destroyed their universe. They figure turnabout is fair play. So, on one of these worlds, perhaps Ob is the threat. On another, it might be Leviathan. Sometimes the Thirteen work together. Sometimes they work alone. Think about the end of the world. It can happen in so many different ways. Global warming. Nuclear war. Disease. Maybe it starts raining and doesn’t stop. Perhaps the sun explodes or a comet collides with us. Or maybe zombies—”

“Zombies?” Maria interrupted.

“Sorry,” Levi apologized. “But when you know the things I know, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Anyway, yes, the end of the world happens every time the Thirteen are loosed upon one of these other realities. And there have been many ends of the worlds.”

“And Nelson LeHorn escaped to another one of these Earths.”

“Another Earth or another planet. Who knows? He could have miscalculated and ended up on Mars or anywhere else in the universe. Just as there are multiple Earths, there are alternate versions of the other planets as well. Imagine a Mars where life still exists, or a Jupiter that was formed out of rock and dust, rather than gases. All I know for sure is that after he murdered his wife, Nelson LeHorn opened a doorway in the hollow and fled through it. He closed the doorway behind him, but it still exists. LeHorn took precautions. He knew what waited out there. Knew that if he wasn’t careful, something else could come through the portal. So he placed a circle of protection around the door, ensuring that nothing else could use it. But something went wrong. I don’t know what. Maybe the sigils were removed or the circle was broken. Whatever the cause, this entity—this living darkness—is now seeping through into our world. It hasn’t made it all the way through. Not yet. But tomorrow night is when the barriers between all worlds are at their thinnest. When that happens, it will surge into our plane of existence, and there’s not a thing we can do about it.”

Maria studied him closely. He seemed so earnest, so self-aware. Whether or not he was crazy—and he had to be to spin a story like this—Levi honestly believed every word of it.

But how had he known about Lucky? And Pete’s dog? She’d never told anyone about that. Indeed, she’d been ashamed of it all her life. No matter how much time passed, she still felt the guilt.

Levi had known.

“Okay,” she said, still keeping her tone neutral. “What happens then? Once it’s loose. Everything goes dark?”

“Yes. Eternal night. Like a total, planet-wide eclipse. It would start at the doorway and then quickly sweep across the land. But that’s just the beginning. Every living thing that this creature touches gets consumed. It sucks up all their energy, leaving an empty husk behind. Within days, our planet would be a lifeless shell. Once the Earth’s energies had been depleted, the creature would move on to the next world.”

Maria decided to change tactics.

“You seem to know a lot about this…thing that can’t be named. But how? I mean, if all of our history books and religious texts are wrong, then how can you be sure you’ve got the right information?”

“Because of my source. Yes, over the centuries, a lot of people have got it wrong. The Celts, for example, believed this creature was a deity from their pantheon. That’s because the entity tricked them into thinking so. It can shift shapes, appearing as anything it wants. Quite often, it takes the form of things we fear, long for, or regret. As I said, it feeds off our energy. Quite often, it is our fears that generate the biggest amount of energy.”

“But you said it feeds off all living things. So what does it appear as to a tree or a flower? They don’t know fear.”

“Sure they do. A tree fears the roar of a chainsaw or the crackle of flame. A flower fears the hum of a lawn mower or the voice of a young man intent on picking it for his girlfriend.” Maria stared at him, speechless.

“It doesn’t always use that attack, however. It can appear as a benevolent being—a friend or parent or lost love. It appeared to the Celts as a human male with a silver arm replacing its original arm, which had supposedly been lost in battle. It appeared to others as an old man carrying a great wooden staff in one hand, and riding in a seashell chariot drawn by flaming beasts. Again, this was a falsehood. Historians have misidentified it. Archeologists, too—attributing ruins and sites to its name, even though the things worshipped there were far different. Fiction writers like Arthur Machen and H. P. Lovecraft have added to the confusion over the years. One of them even labeled the entity as the Lord of the Great Deep, which is actually Leviathan’s post. In reality, there’s only one, true source of information on this thing—and the rest of the Thirteen. It’s the only source I trust.”

“Let me guess,” Maria said. “You hear the voice of God?”

“Please don’t tease me. This is a very serious matter. My source is something called the Daemonolateria .”

“You know Latin?”

“It’s not Latin. I know it sounds like it, but the word is from a language not spoken on this planet. The Daemonolateria is sort of a book, although it’s unlike any other book you’ve ever heard of. There are different versions; each copy is unique. Some of it exists on this plane of reality. Other parts exist…elsewhere. Its contents can change, depending on the own er and translation, but much of it deals with all of this forgotten history. It contains methods of stopping or banishing the Thirteen, including the thing we face.”

“Sounds awfully confusing.”

“It is. It’s definitely not for amateurs. There’s as much misinformation about the Daemonolateria as there is about the Thirteen. In short, if he wants to be sure, a magus has to build his own version of the book. That’s what I’m in the process of doing. It can be dangerous. Nelson LeHorn’s copy was fairly complete and very accurate. But it also made him paranoid. A lot of people like us coveted it.”

“‘Like us’?”