The Confluence

The Confluence Part XIV

The cold air whistled quietly through Adrian's ears. The tape wrapped around the handle was warm though, and stuck to his hand softly. The weight of the crowbar felt good in hand. Gripping it tighter, he looked over across the roof of the car, and watched Suzie as she got out of the car herself. Before she could close the door, Adrian said "Don't forget the gun, kid. It's yours now, and we're gonna need it up there. Do you know how to use it?" Suzie rolled her eyes, and went back in to grab the shotgun. "Yeah, I know how to shoot it, dumbass. My dad was all about guns growin up." Taking the shotgun deftly, she checked the chamber to make sure it was loaded, and checked the safety. Seeing it was on, she clicked it off. Seeing Adrian's raised eyebrow, she responded with a thin smile "Believe man, I won't fucking hesitate." Adrian returned the ghost of her smile, and then turned to the huge and foreboding woods. After shutting the car down, Suzie went back to the trunk. Popping it open, she immediately found a small bundle of road flares and a flashlight. She went back around towards Adrian, and tossed the road flares to him. Catching them in his left hand, he stuffed the bundle into his back pocket. Powering on the flashlight, Suzie and Adrian turned towards the huge and ancient woods, standing on either side of the Camaro.

They made their way slowly, although luckily enough the underbrush wasn't too thick, but tree roots made the forest floor beneath them uneven. Adrian's breathing was getting heavy, as his memory of his dream the night before shot through his brain. The trees looked the same, just a bit bigger, and older. He knew that from here he could see the mountain towering above him, but looking up only gave him a vision of a dark void, where the tops of the trees whispered together in an unfelt wind. He followed slightly behind Suzie, leading with the light, illuminating the trunks of the trees as they made their way through the wood. Their journey to the stone stairs was a slow, but conveniently quiet one. Both were jumpy from their run-ins with the creatures, starting at whatever small stealthy sound made its way past them. Adrian and Suzie both had this pervasive feeling of minuteness, like they were lost in the midst of a vast dark ocean. Suzie at least knew somewhat of the direction they were going, but the area around her was almost unrecognizable now that the forest was draped in the cover of nightfall. The wind was their only companion as the two made their way through the woods, whispering its nothingness to them. The trees that had been covering the night sky eventually thinned, allowing the moon to shine down on the mountain, giving it this eerie silvery glow that Adrian actually gasped at. The mountain was beautiful in an eerie and alien way to him, and it was as if he was standing someplace else, somewhere distant and strange. There was an almost imperceptible feeling of pulling, like how Adrian imagined what being sucked into a black hole felt like.

Suzie herself felt pure revulsion and vague terror at the sight of the mountain. It reminded her of all the awful things people had done to her; all the times her father had beaten her, her first time meeting Johnny and him feeding her cocaine at some punk house show, the ways he had dominated her both sexually and emotionally over the course of their short friendship; the feeling of his blood squirting onto her face and the guilt she had for the small fleeting sense of relief as she realized he was dead dead dead and fucking gone, gone for good and she didnt even have to try removing him from her life, this was best, the best way for him to go. The mountain made Suzie feel all the powerlessness she had felt throughout her entire life, how meaningless and empty the world was and how her place in all this chaos and confusion was devoid of any sense of purpose, and never would mean anything to anybody. Amidst the tangle of her thoughts, there came a calm line of thought through a reflection. She had felt the same way back at the abandoned house, back in Kennedy. It made her feel the same dark lust of something slimy and wriggling in some shadowy place. Her breath caught in her throat just as Adrian gasped. Both of them had stopped moving, staring at the mountain, their grips slowly loosening on the gun and the crowbar. Suzie was the first to come back to her senses when the metal of the shotgun hit her hand. Its icy coldness snapped her back, and she felt a surge of confidence roar into her system. She took up the gun, and setting her teeth, began trudging again towards the mountain. Adrian himself saw Suzie begin making her towards the mountain, and quickly followed behind her. It wasn't much longer until they came to the stone stairs, glowing silver in the moonlight. "Jesus... I feel like I'm dreaming." Adrian murmured as he stared at the stairs that wound their way up the steep slopes up the mountain. His eyes could follow the stairs like a silver thread, winding their way up to the mountain top. "This has to be the place, right?" Suzie nodded grimly. "I don't know what could be up there. Whatever it is though, I know it's powerful. I can... I can feel it, pulling it towards me, like it... it has caught itself to my mind like a fishing hook." Adrian continued, his eyes wide and mouth slightly slack. This whole look also made Suzie feel suddenly wary of him. "It has me."