Chapter Forty-One

Sturgeon Bay

Once Isabel disappeared, the entire world darkened. Storm clouds gathered, and the sun seemed much lower in the western sky than it had just minutes ago. An acrid wind arose suddenly from the south, striking Isaac in the face. Sinuous tendrils of wood smoke appeared with a shift in the wind.

Isaac followed a mulch-covered trail northward, out of the forest. He heard an occasional twig snapping behind him but saw no trace of his stalkers. When he reached civilization, he spotted a red mountain bike on the side of the road. His excitement grew when he saw the indentation along the left side of the top tube. This was his bike. My world…

He pedaled his Trek northeast along Bay Settlement Road, completing the first of over seventy-five miles. He headed east on Van Lannen and followed the rolling hills past farms lit by the morning sun. He watched in the periphery of his vision as fields of wheat rolled like waves upon the sea. The golden fields were an endless bay, and the bright red barns and steel corn silos were boats sailing against the backdrop of the blue Midwestern sky. This is easy.

Isaac caught the scent of smoke. He looked northward. The immediate roadside was littered by scarlet leaves of stag-horn sumac and clusters of hairy red fruit. He traveled further but felt goosebumps erupt on his arms and legs. The smell of smoke intensified. He rounded a bend in the road and saw a wall of black smoke obliterate the path ahead. Fingers of red and orange flame clawed their way toward the leaden cauldron sky. The peninsula was on fire.

He peddled cautiously onward, eager to find a way around the danger. As he got closer, he inhaled the toxic, black air and coughed violently. He recognized the way ahead was not only impenetrable but also deadly. He turned left, heading downhill toward the waterfront. Wisps of poisonous air followed him, and he pedaled harder.

The poisonous air clung to dry land and stopped abruptly at the water’s edge. Isaac abandoned his bike and then waded into the chilly bay. He breathed hungrily the sweet-smelling air, but his eyes and throat continued to burn. He shivered in the cold water but dared not wade out of its protective embrace.

Entire stands of hemlock shrunk from the monstrous tongues of orange and red but were ultimately consumed. The sky above was black soot, and the merciless wind carried the inferno ever eastward. The noise became deafening.

A red kayak bobbed upon the waves further out to sea. He swam toward it as the sea and sky became the color of blood. The entire seascape was ravaged by the crimson inferno. He reached the kayak just as the first raven found him.

The hideous bird had feathers of deep scarlet, but its eyes were as ebony as every Binder of Souls. It flapped its carmine wings directly overhead and dove beak first toward his skull. He ducked just in time to avoid a piercing by the pernicious creature, which disappeared into a scarlet wave.

Isaac struggled to enter the cockpit of the unstable boat. Hundreds of crimson ravens flew toward him. They seemed to arise from the fire itself, which consumed the entire shore. The multitudinous pattering of their flight became a cacophony as they neared the only living creature. Violent waves battered the kayak, sending it closer to shore. The fierce wind seared his skin and caused his mouth to go dry.

Isaac managed to enter the kayak. He yanked the fiberglass paddle out from bow – mounted bungee cords and paddled hard against the onslaught of waves. A green buoy appeared suddenly several hundred yards away. It bobbed upon the water, clanging with desperation. Its sound reminded Isaac of church bells, sending him a trickle of hope that the navigational aid was his creation, not theirs. He struck the water with fury, starboard to port, propelling himself toward the buoy as his pursuers neared. The air itself thickened and fought against Isaac’s flight. The green beacon was less than a hundred yards away but innumerable ravens plummeted toward him from directly overhead. Their beaks flashed scarlet in the fiery sky.

The sea itself heaved so that towering waves struck Isaac malevolently. The sound of wind, fire, and wings was deafening. The first score of crimson birds fell upon him like a spilled fan of bricks. Isaac felt their beaks pecking at his skull as he capsized against the steel float.

When Isaac surfaced he found himself alone in the middle of the bay. The cacophony of waves, winged beasts, and fiery destruction had completely ceased, rendering this world eerily quiet. He scanned the sky and horizon but saw no trace of his pursuers, only the distant reach of orange flames much further south than seemed possible. He realized the buoy was a doorway. My world… It led him away from the scarlet winged beasts. They’ll come for me. The carbon fiber boat and paddle were less than fifty yards away, and he swam toward them.

A red brick tower flashed a beacon of light, temporarily blinding him. When his vision returned he recognized the lighthouse. This was Sturgeon Bay, half way between his home and Gill’s Rock. Half way there.

He was in the ship canal, a waterway that bisected the peninsula into a northern and a southern half. Perhaps some magic of the True Path remains. Perhaps, but the southern shores were consumed by the rapidly advancing inferno.

He reentered the cockpit and paddled northward. Dusk descended quickly, and with it, the old crescent moon rose, informing Isaac he had two days to reach the Gill’s Rock Light. He didn’t think he could kayak the remaining forty miles in that time. He didn’t even understand what time meant in this dream world. He wished for another buoy but didn’t see one.

As he put his back into each stroke, he felt the kayak ease through the bay like a knife through soft butter. The water was flat and clear. The night was silent save for the gentle waterfall sound of water sliding past carbon fiber. The moon cast a gentle white path upon the sea, following the paddler as he journeyed northward toward the Door of Death.

He glided past a school of silver fish that glistened white under the gaze of the moon. The timid creatures darted through undulating slender reeds. The sea’s vegetation looked like tiny fingers, each flexing and clawing at the water with desperation. Then he saw her. A young girl, whose long brown hair flowed like seaweed, struggled unsuccessfully to reach the surface.

Isaac saw the girl’s terror-filled green eyes, which seemed to plead with him to save her. She remained just out of reach, trapped by some unseen obstacle or weight. He tipped his kayak starboard, forcing an intentional capsize. The bay was shockingly cold. He opened his eyes and felt the alkaline sting of water against his irritated corneas. He saw the girl just beneath him and to his left. He swam toward her and grabbed her outstretched arm with both hands. Her eyes looked up at him entreatingly as he tried in vain to pry her loose. He tugged at the girl’s legs to free her from her entanglement. He almost aspirated the frigid water when he discovered the ring of three sable shadows circling the helpless child.

The demons taunted the girl by periodically releasing their hold on her long enough for hope to rise. They moved like a spill of oil through the water, spreading contamination with their every plume. Each tendril of black sludge invariably pulled the child down into the dark depths after each futile attempt at freedom. Then Isaac beheld the true horror of the bay.

The entire sea bottom was haunted by the specter of hundreds of children, each trying desperately to free himself or herself from the pitch-shadowed captors. Their screams of hopeless dread reverberated through the water. His heart sunk to a depth he never fathomed, but there were too many to save. Too many children, too heavy a burden.

Isaac’s lungs ached from holding his breath almost beyond his abilities. He rushed to the surface and inhaled the night air in greedy gulps. A thin sheet of ice floated upon the water’s surface. The entire bay was beginning to freeze. Isaac ignored the cold. After the third inhalation he dove back toward the brown-haired girl. He might not be able to save the others, but he was not going to abandon the girl.

Isaac grabbed hold of the child’s waist and pulled upward. There was an initial measure of give, just the slightest movement toward the surface, but it was quickly followed by a descent to a greater depth than they had started. He tried again, and then again, but each attempt was like tugging an iron chain bound to an immovable anchor. He was out of air and rushed to the surface to breathe.

Below him charcoal shadows spread like sewage, sending out slimy tentacles toward countless victims. His heart pounded in fear as a weedy shape clamped onto his legs. He pulled himself free and made a mad rush toward the surface.

The girl’s face looked up at him, and he drank in the helplessness and despair in her eyes. He could almost see her pale lips form the word “please” as he swam away. Too many children. Too many Binders of Souls. When he surfaced, the kayak was gone and the ice formed a thicker sheet upon the water’s surface. He swam through the frozen barrier and made it to shore.

Isaac’s hair, cotton shirt, and jeans were soaking wet. His lips were as blue as his denim, but his cheeks felt flushed. The biting wind froze his exposed face and hands. The burn of the lower peninsula’s fire yielded to an unforgiving winter night upon the northern land. He had reached the safety of unmolested dry land but knew he was completely vulnerable. He shivered violently and looked seaward toward the girl he left behind. So many lost children, each a prisoner.

Isaac worried about starving, about freezing. Would his mind and body die back in the other world and would he then be free of the Binder’s baleful reach? Death was not an option. The flitting shadows beneath the waves would not allow it. He shivered violently and searched his memory for Isabel’s comforting words. “This world is still your dream, your creation.” He hugged his freezing body more tightly to fend off despair.

The little girl’s pale green eyes lit his thoughts. “Please,” they begged of him. That was the real battle. Surrender to exhaustion, loneliness, or bitter cold would not save the girl. Surrender to the Binders would lead to her permanent imprisonment. “No surrender,” he said to the winter wind. His teeth chattered noisily.

The entirety of the southern peninsula was on fire. Scarlet flames reached for the heavens as far as the eye could see. Isaac was separated from the inferno by a mile-wide canal that sparkled with a jade brilliance. The Sturgeon Bay Light stood guardian on the crippled side of the canal and, so far, had been spared fiery devastation.

If anything the fire had grown even more furious as it lay to waste everything in its path. The flames reached almost as far north as the channel and, for the moment, appeared to be magically tamed by the lighthouse and the waterway that bisected the peninsula.

“Hello Isaac,” the stranger called out behind him, shattering the silence. His hair stood on end.