07-27-2013, 05:53 AM
2. The reaction
Jon still wasn't sure why or where he was driving, six hours after the attack he inexplicably escaped. What had that thing been? And why was he still alive? Memory of the feeling of his throat a heartbeat away from being crushed wiped away all other thought. His heart, racing again, sent blood to his head and brought on dizziness, causing the lanes ahead of him to diminish to mere pinpricks.
Reason. Fight fancy with reason, he told himself. This is anxiety. You can't very well drive when you can't see and are panicked. He rushed himself through the meditation exercises taught him by his grandfather as preparation for entering the spirit-walk but stopped himself from stepping over that threshold to leaving his body. All emotion, fear, anxiety was fed into a distant pinprick that could be tucked away.
It was almost morning. Having receded into an unemotional state, Jon dispassionately regarded the pre-dawn glimmers coming from the east, subtly breaking the darkness one moment at a time. A sign passed him saying “Welcome to North Carolina.” Quite a deviation from where he was supposed to be six days from now in New Haven.
His truck was running low again on fuel. This was becoming an expensive venture into nowhere, even for someone who retained summer pay and savings from his reservation's dividend checks, far and few between though they were becoming. Jon pulled himself out of his meditation and looked for a place to pull over.
Ah. A gas station up ahead. Jon had little of training in the way of martial arts or fighting reflexes, and made the potentially fatal error of cringing as he pulled into the station, his small muscles so taut they were more likely to split on their own than react in proper time to a threat. So it should not have been any surprise to him that when a shape approached Jon as he exited his vehicle, he spasmed, slipped and hit his head on the door of his truck.
“Careful, traveler,” said a crackled, aged voice. Jon's vision returned, and he was on the ground looking up at an aged man, skin parched and wrinkled as much as the voiced had been. His facial features, high cheekbones and the set of his eyes against his head bespoke of obvious native blood in his lineage, and his whitened, braided hair lay neatly across his shoulders and across his chest nearly to his waist. Clearly an elder of some tribe.
“Forgive my rudeness, elder,” Jon managed to mutter. “I must have slipped and fallen. I will be on my way shortly.”
The man threw his aged head back in laughter. “Traveler, that is funny, for I am here to meet you.”
Despite all the events of the past twelve hours, that was still the greatest oddity of the night. “What?” Jon stammered. “How did you know I was going to meet you?”
The laughter came again. “I dreamed you were going to be here, that's how. Come with me.”
It had still taken some more convincing for the old man, now revealed to Jon as Noah Crow's Eye, to bring Jon to his people's reservation. The Oconaluftee Village at Cherokee, North Carolina was the home of the last remaining Cherokees east of the Mississippi River. They were the only ones who had managed to escape forced removal at the hands of the U.S. Military over 200 years ago. He was driven past cloth-framed teepees and men and girls clothed in feathered garb – obvious tourist claptrap designed to give a show to people either dumb-witted enough to really think native Americans hadn't moved on past the seventeenth century, or simply those willing to part with their dollars to enjoy a stereotyped show. Any high-school level history student knew full well teepees were a shelter device employed by the semi-nomadic tribes on the Plains – like Jon's own Apache ancestors – and not a more agrarian and -some would say - civilized tribe such as the Cherokee.
Noah pulled up to a simple house with brown clapboard covering – definitely a more accurate representation of an authentic Cherokee dwelling, Jon thought – and parked Jon's truck outside. The old man moved with surprisingly spry step and helped Jon out of the cab.
“I'm okay, no need to --”
“Hush, traveler. You are wounded. Come inside my house and you will be tended to.”
Hard to argue with that. Spots still danced on his vision from hitting his door. He accepted Noah's assistance and was laid upon a simple leather couch. The old man opened Jon's shirt and muttered to himself as he inspected the gouges in his flesh.
“Probably no stitching needed, highly superficial...chance of infection...” he muttered. “What do you remember of the attack?”
“Little.” Jon shook his head to clear the haze. “Large eyes...claws. It moved swiftly and spoke almost as if into my mind. He wanted me to give him secrets of our people's medicine. I don't know what he meant.”
The old man nodded. “Hm. As I might have expected. Just to be sure though...” He shuffled to an oak cabinet and retrieved a vial of a liquid that sent a metallic glimmer in the light. He uncorked it and unceremoniously dumped it upon Jon's wound.
“GAAH!” Fiery pain invaded Jon's very bowels and forced him upright, and he saw himself facing down a silvery .44 magnum revolver aimed right at his head. Jon froze.
Noah let out a sigh of relief and relaxed his grip on the firearm, bringing it down to his side. “So that is taken care of. There are many types of demons known to us. Some can do terrible things to you. Had you been infected by certain ones of them, that poultice would either kill the toxins or bring the demon possessing you to the surface, which would have forced me to kill it and you. Had to know.”
Jon just blinked at the admission. I am facing a lunatic, he thought. “Can you tell me anything helpful?”
Noah laughed again. That crackling was truly haunting. “Other than what I just did?” He wiped a bit of spittle from the side of his lip and set to bandaging up Jon's side. “Be at ease. The poultice I gave you will also ward against more mundane infections as well. What I can tell you is that your attacker appears to have been Kilgatilik. Or one of the Clawed People he was of.”
“The what people?”
“This is a legend come from the Inuits far to the north. One day, First Brother and Sister were out finding a place to build a home. Brother was away hunting and Sister tending the fire, and the Clawed People came. She was attacked and scarred. Brother found out and set out to kill the people who had harmed his sister. He finally got to one old man of the Clawed People who said he had told his people to leave Sister alone else Brother would kill them all. Brother killed that man too. But there were others of the Clawed People Brother and Sister new not about. One named Kigatilik swore revenge on the First People and vowed to take their medicine from them so they would no longer be able to fight.”
The old man was silent for a moment.
“Kigatilik is known for hunting those of our people who had medicine. The priests, the shaman, throughout the Americas, since the dawn of time.”
Jon stammered. He felt woozy. “I was hunted...by a mythical demon I never heard of in my people's stories...not to mention maybe not real...and I am supposed to believe that? What am I, a medicine man?”
Noah laughed. “Our peoples were cast asunder long before the White Man came. Stories...the ones we both remember are so old they are probably older than the First People, if true. I know of no man with true medicine to come after the ones we know together, Crow, Coyote, Mother, and so on. Our peoples no longer have the power to change the living world as we wish.” Aside, so low Jon barely heard it, the man muttered to himself “but what was and what will be may also be what is, today.”
“I'm sorry?” Jon spoke, louder than he would have considered respectful.
Noah shook his head. “Nothing, traveler. No god reborn may you be -” he stopped and swallowed. “But there are other things of the old ways that live on, that are seen as threats. Even are stories are looked upon as threats to some – but I speak of an ability I saw you use before. You can walk in the spirit world as I do and you know it.”
Jon frowned. “I sometimes see my spirit guide in meditation. It is a thing of calming and guidance. Not as you mean --”
He was cut off by Noah's abrupt hand before him, pointing. “Several months ago, the night before your debate against Dartmouth, you walked the spirit world and found your opponent's argument, or what reflected of them in the spirit world. You used what you learned to attack his argument before he could make it. Try to deny it!”
“I --” That was just a dream he'd had. So much had faded by the morning after...yet when facing Dartmouth championship team he remembered now what confidence he had that he would be able to crush any position his opponent took. “How do you know this?”
Noah chuckled. “I saw you there, of course. The spirit world is a reflection of our own, and some such as I, and you as well, can go there. This is a thing of our peoples that remains to this day even as we diminish. As a reflection, nothing you do there will physically alter our world, but there are many dangers. What happens to you there may harm you, or even kill you.” He paused for a moment. “And sometimes there one can catch glimpses of what is yet to come.”
Jon lay back. So much to take in and process. “Such as?”
Noah looked away. “Why, I knew you would come here. I know that if you do not remain here for at least eight more days, you will die.
“And I have seen more.”
“What --” Jon struggled to move, feeling threatened, but the man lay a hand on his chest and pushed him back with strength that overwhelmed his.
“I also know that the poultice I administered to you is laced with a powerful drug to induce sleep, and it is about to knock you out.”
Blackness.
Jon blinked, and woke. His mouth was very dry. He was in a bed, wrapped with clean white linens. He was unbound, and while the door to his simple room was shut, it didn't appeared to be barred. What –
He had been tricked. That stung. Overwhelmed, overpowered, any of those he could have taken. He did, after all, have limits, particularly in the physical department. Being tricked – that hurt his pride.
The door opened, admitting Noah, carrying a pitcher and a glass. “Good morning,” he crooned. That sly smile. He poured water into the glass. “I hope you slept well.”
Parched though Jon was, anger won out. He smacked the glass out of the man's hand, and barely heard it shatter against the wall. Feeling surprisingly hale, he jerked out of bed and seized Noah by the shirt collar. “What did you do to me, old man?”
The man managed to carefully set the pitcher aside while held by Jon. “I will explain. But be careful how you step. You have been asleep eight days and may not have much in the way of balance.”
“I--” eight days? He was supposed to start his graduate work at Yale last week! His head felt full of cotton. He wanted to laugh, or cry, or something. What he did do, mercifully, was let go of the old man's shirt, which went against the fury he felt at the man's trickery. “You old fool. The wickedness you have done is beyond forgiveness.”
Noah only nodded. “Be at ease. Curse me if you will, for I will not defend the means I used. Allow me to explain.”
Jon nodded. He wished he had drunk the water first.
“When I saw your future reflected in the dream, I saw several possible outcomes of our first visit. Only the one I took would have kept you here. Along the others, you would have died. While you slept, I had several doctors, ones I trust not to go to the WHO or...others...check you out and certify you as healthy and free of any disease, mundane or otherwise that they can detect. I did this because...
Noah reached out a hand and touched Jon's forehead. He tried to slap the hand away, but he seemed to have lost all coordination. Chills suddenly swept his body.
Noah nodded. “Yes, this is what I saw.”
Jon was hot and cold all at once. Spots danced on his vision. His teeth clenched and his back and legs cramped, forcing him to his knees. “W---wh---you did something,” he finally stuttered in accusation.
“I have done nothing to cause this,” Noah said. Jon could hardly hear him. “Truth is I know not what is happening to you right now. But I can tell you that you will survive this. Here.” From somewhere he produced another cup and poured from the pitcher. A very small amount. He held Jon closely and put the cups to his lips. It wasn't water, but something bitter that sucked what little moisture was left out of his mouth.
“Only a little, to help your mind accept and embrace that what is about to happen to you will pass, and perhaps distance your mind from the worst of it.” Echoes of a voice from far distant. Jon was now somehow on his feet and led into Noah's living room. He saw other men, and smelled thick smoke and incense and maybe something else. These men had paint on their faces and the fire swirled and crackled around them, it seemed. Drums and chanting. He was laid on a deerskin rug with a cushion beneath his head, and ropes were tied around his hands and his feet. Something thick was placed between his teeth – leather? As convulsions and heat and chills swept over him, the lights in the room danced and melted into the beating of his heart and the thumping of the drums and the voices in chorus.
As coherence slipped away the last thing he saw was Noah's face and him saying: “Hush...these next few hours will not be pleasant for you at all.”
He couldn't stop himself from trying to scream the entire time.
Some time later, the living room was empty. Jon looked around, not having really fallen asleep but not having been truly awake. He looked around and realized he was unbound. The leather was gone from his mouth, and he surprisingly had the strength to stand up. In fact, he felt he could run if he wanted to.
Noah came into the room and smiled at Jon. “I see you are feeling better.”
Jon nodded. “Yes...I am. I thought I was going to die and I feel fine now.” He remembered the old man denying he'd caused the affliction, and decided he believed him. “You knew this was going to happen to me, didn't you?”
Noah nodded. “You wouldn't have believed me had I told you. I saw you screaming in my dreams. Sometimes, you were here, in my living room. Other times you were not. In every possibility I saw other than what came to pass, it ended poorly for you. I see you know what it was now.”
Jon blinked. The symptoms he had...the Pandemic. Young men and women with symptoms like his...sometimes dying screaming, horrible deaths no one could treat. “I'm afflicted...this isn't possible.” Was it the beast, Kilgatili that had attacked him that had infected him? Or something else? He started for the door. “I have to go to the hospital. What if I get others sick?”
“Stop!” The simple command ground Jon to a halt. “Modern medicine can do nothing for you. It would have done so already for the others afflicted if it could. You are not the first of our people to have come down with the Pandemic. Not even the first on this reservation. It seems there is a significantly higher number of those of our native blood so afflicted. Perhaps because of the isolation of our blood running thicker together. But regardless I have seen it before in person and judge it not to be contagious as infectious diseases are known to be. The other walkers of the spirit world I have spoken with agree with me that it is likely an affliction of the spirit of sorts and not a disease.”
Not a disease? Jon recalled the sheer terror and pain associated with the event. “And the ritual? What was that, an exorcism?”
Noah laughed. “No, just a meditation ritual, some parts from the old ways, others from new, a little peyote to help ease the passage of time and wash away the most traumatic parts of your experience by helping you embrace it rhythmically, nothing more. Yours was particularly...powerful. The worst I've ever seen. The symptoms usually aren't nearly as strong.”
Jon held his head in his hands. So much to process. “You say you've seen others. What happened to them?”
Noah sighed. “This is the last thing I need to warn you of before I send you on your way. I have known of four cases. One from this reservation, two from other tribes out of state brought to me, and a fourth from a non-native family of deeply religious upbringing who still found a 'medicine man's' guidance better than a hospital.
“The first two we sent to hospitals within the first month, after the symptoms returned. They both got better, but shortly after both of them met with 'accidents.'”
“Accidents?”
“Yes,” the old man nodded. “No foul play proven, and the law didn't care to try and investigate too deeply. But it was known that a couple of individuals had been seen near the hospital with the sign of the Ouroboros.” Noah made a circle in the air. “The image of the snake eating its own tail. It is an old, old symbol. Those called the Atharim are known to wear it.”
“The Atharim,” Jon repeated, sounding out the word.
Noah nodded. “There are more than demons that are a danger to people who follow the old ways. The Atharim are known to few, but it is known they hunt the things of the old world, the demons and gods of old myths. Including our own myths. We know of them because they have hunted us. Even in recent times.”
“What?” Jon said. “I've never heard of such a thing.”
“Have you ever thought about what really happened to my ancestors the Cherokee in the events that preceded and became known as the Trail of Tears?” Noah asked. “Think if you will the insanity, the resources, the manipulation that went into uprooting a peaceful, civilized people – the Cherokee were civilized! – and made to move a thousand miles, killing many along the way.”
Jon pondered this as Noah continued: “Think further how the insanity was compounded by the fact that those acts were committed by the same government that had told itself it was not allowed to commit the acts in the first place. What hand guided those acts? Only some entity wrought with true madness...or one with an ulterior motive. We few Cherokee elders remaining who know the experiences as passed down from generations past believe that several members of the Atharim had infiltrated the federal government and either instigated or allowed this atrocity and others happen.”
Jon nodded. The old man made sense with his logic. Kick them off the land, scatter them...someone, or an organization, that found the old ways a threat would have a much easier time eliminating the stories, the spirit walkers, the lore, even perhaps the gods if they were to have still walked among man at that time.
“Your symptoms will return,” Noah warned. “You must not ever seek a hospital and you must get out of public eye if the symptoms come upon you suddenly. It is unlikely they will be as strong as you experienced here. It may feel as simple as a cold at first.”
This was too much. Jon had had enough. Hiding when he sneezed? “Thank you for what you've done...I think. But if you don't mind, I want some way to get on with my life. See if I can continue on at Yale. Study law and do something more useful than being drugged in a sleep for days. The world is a mess out there, demons and spirit walking and afflictions aside and it is passing me by.”
“Very well. You should know there is an experienced doctor of Native American folklore, Dr. Kevin Anderson, at New Haven. He will have access to many collections of oral tales, and he may be of more help to you. Maybe there is something in our myths that can be put together to make sense of it all.” Noah smiled. “I've already taken the liberty of contacting him. He will be handling your...late arrival and ensure you are excused from it. I will have your truck gassed up and loaded with supplies.” The old man seemed quite sad.
“What else can you tell me about what you have seen?” Jon asked, but Noah shook his head.
“Too much knowledge of the future is dangerous. What I could tell you wouldn't make any difference anyway. Go get your law degree and I may or may not see you in the spirit world.”
“Fair enough,” Jon replied. “But you never told me what happened to the other two youth you treated. The ones that didn't go to the hospital?”
The man nodded. “The third was a girl of about 16. Her symptoms disappeared after several months and within a year left the reservation. I know nothing else about what happened to her.”
“And the fourth?”
Noah paused and turned his back to Jon. Finally he said simply, “He is buried behind my house.”
Jon still wasn't sure why or where he was driving, six hours after the attack he inexplicably escaped. What had that thing been? And why was he still alive? Memory of the feeling of his throat a heartbeat away from being crushed wiped away all other thought. His heart, racing again, sent blood to his head and brought on dizziness, causing the lanes ahead of him to diminish to mere pinpricks.
Reason. Fight fancy with reason, he told himself. This is anxiety. You can't very well drive when you can't see and are panicked. He rushed himself through the meditation exercises taught him by his grandfather as preparation for entering the spirit-walk but stopped himself from stepping over that threshold to leaving his body. All emotion, fear, anxiety was fed into a distant pinprick that could be tucked away.
It was almost morning. Having receded into an unemotional state, Jon dispassionately regarded the pre-dawn glimmers coming from the east, subtly breaking the darkness one moment at a time. A sign passed him saying “Welcome to North Carolina.” Quite a deviation from where he was supposed to be six days from now in New Haven.
His truck was running low again on fuel. This was becoming an expensive venture into nowhere, even for someone who retained summer pay and savings from his reservation's dividend checks, far and few between though they were becoming. Jon pulled himself out of his meditation and looked for a place to pull over.
Ah. A gas station up ahead. Jon had little of training in the way of martial arts or fighting reflexes, and made the potentially fatal error of cringing as he pulled into the station, his small muscles so taut they were more likely to split on their own than react in proper time to a threat. So it should not have been any surprise to him that when a shape approached Jon as he exited his vehicle, he spasmed, slipped and hit his head on the door of his truck.
“Careful, traveler,” said a crackled, aged voice. Jon's vision returned, and he was on the ground looking up at an aged man, skin parched and wrinkled as much as the voiced had been. His facial features, high cheekbones and the set of his eyes against his head bespoke of obvious native blood in his lineage, and his whitened, braided hair lay neatly across his shoulders and across his chest nearly to his waist. Clearly an elder of some tribe.
“Forgive my rudeness, elder,” Jon managed to mutter. “I must have slipped and fallen. I will be on my way shortly.”
The man threw his aged head back in laughter. “Traveler, that is funny, for I am here to meet you.”
Despite all the events of the past twelve hours, that was still the greatest oddity of the night. “What?” Jon stammered. “How did you know I was going to meet you?”
The laughter came again. “I dreamed you were going to be here, that's how. Come with me.”
It had still taken some more convincing for the old man, now revealed to Jon as Noah Crow's Eye, to bring Jon to his people's reservation. The Oconaluftee Village at Cherokee, North Carolina was the home of the last remaining Cherokees east of the Mississippi River. They were the only ones who had managed to escape forced removal at the hands of the U.S. Military over 200 years ago. He was driven past cloth-framed teepees and men and girls clothed in feathered garb – obvious tourist claptrap designed to give a show to people either dumb-witted enough to really think native Americans hadn't moved on past the seventeenth century, or simply those willing to part with their dollars to enjoy a stereotyped show. Any high-school level history student knew full well teepees were a shelter device employed by the semi-nomadic tribes on the Plains – like Jon's own Apache ancestors – and not a more agrarian and -some would say - civilized tribe such as the Cherokee.
Noah pulled up to a simple house with brown clapboard covering – definitely a more accurate representation of an authentic Cherokee dwelling, Jon thought – and parked Jon's truck outside. The old man moved with surprisingly spry step and helped Jon out of the cab.
“I'm okay, no need to --”
“Hush, traveler. You are wounded. Come inside my house and you will be tended to.”
Hard to argue with that. Spots still danced on his vision from hitting his door. He accepted Noah's assistance and was laid upon a simple leather couch. The old man opened Jon's shirt and muttered to himself as he inspected the gouges in his flesh.
“Probably no stitching needed, highly superficial...chance of infection...” he muttered. “What do you remember of the attack?”
“Little.” Jon shook his head to clear the haze. “Large eyes...claws. It moved swiftly and spoke almost as if into my mind. He wanted me to give him secrets of our people's medicine. I don't know what he meant.”
The old man nodded. “Hm. As I might have expected. Just to be sure though...” He shuffled to an oak cabinet and retrieved a vial of a liquid that sent a metallic glimmer in the light. He uncorked it and unceremoniously dumped it upon Jon's wound.
“GAAH!” Fiery pain invaded Jon's very bowels and forced him upright, and he saw himself facing down a silvery .44 magnum revolver aimed right at his head. Jon froze.
Noah let out a sigh of relief and relaxed his grip on the firearm, bringing it down to his side. “So that is taken care of. There are many types of demons known to us. Some can do terrible things to you. Had you been infected by certain ones of them, that poultice would either kill the toxins or bring the demon possessing you to the surface, which would have forced me to kill it and you. Had to know.”
Jon just blinked at the admission. I am facing a lunatic, he thought. “Can you tell me anything helpful?”
Noah laughed again. That crackling was truly haunting. “Other than what I just did?” He wiped a bit of spittle from the side of his lip and set to bandaging up Jon's side. “Be at ease. The poultice I gave you will also ward against more mundane infections as well. What I can tell you is that your attacker appears to have been Kilgatilik. Or one of the Clawed People he was of.”
“The what people?”
“This is a legend come from the Inuits far to the north. One day, First Brother and Sister were out finding a place to build a home. Brother was away hunting and Sister tending the fire, and the Clawed People came. She was attacked and scarred. Brother found out and set out to kill the people who had harmed his sister. He finally got to one old man of the Clawed People who said he had told his people to leave Sister alone else Brother would kill them all. Brother killed that man too. But there were others of the Clawed People Brother and Sister new not about. One named Kigatilik swore revenge on the First People and vowed to take their medicine from them so they would no longer be able to fight.”
The old man was silent for a moment.
“Kigatilik is known for hunting those of our people who had medicine. The priests, the shaman, throughout the Americas, since the dawn of time.”
Jon stammered. He felt woozy. “I was hunted...by a mythical demon I never heard of in my people's stories...not to mention maybe not real...and I am supposed to believe that? What am I, a medicine man?”
Noah laughed. “Our peoples were cast asunder long before the White Man came. Stories...the ones we both remember are so old they are probably older than the First People, if true. I know of no man with true medicine to come after the ones we know together, Crow, Coyote, Mother, and so on. Our peoples no longer have the power to change the living world as we wish.” Aside, so low Jon barely heard it, the man muttered to himself “but what was and what will be may also be what is, today.”
“I'm sorry?” Jon spoke, louder than he would have considered respectful.
Noah shook his head. “Nothing, traveler. No god reborn may you be -” he stopped and swallowed. “But there are other things of the old ways that live on, that are seen as threats. Even are stories are looked upon as threats to some – but I speak of an ability I saw you use before. You can walk in the spirit world as I do and you know it.”
Jon frowned. “I sometimes see my spirit guide in meditation. It is a thing of calming and guidance. Not as you mean --”
He was cut off by Noah's abrupt hand before him, pointing. “Several months ago, the night before your debate against Dartmouth, you walked the spirit world and found your opponent's argument, or what reflected of them in the spirit world. You used what you learned to attack his argument before he could make it. Try to deny it!”
“I --” That was just a dream he'd had. So much had faded by the morning after...yet when facing Dartmouth championship team he remembered now what confidence he had that he would be able to crush any position his opponent took. “How do you know this?”
Noah chuckled. “I saw you there, of course. The spirit world is a reflection of our own, and some such as I, and you as well, can go there. This is a thing of our peoples that remains to this day even as we diminish. As a reflection, nothing you do there will physically alter our world, but there are many dangers. What happens to you there may harm you, or even kill you.” He paused for a moment. “And sometimes there one can catch glimpses of what is yet to come.”
Jon lay back. So much to take in and process. “Such as?”
Noah looked away. “Why, I knew you would come here. I know that if you do not remain here for at least eight more days, you will die.
“And I have seen more.”
“What --” Jon struggled to move, feeling threatened, but the man lay a hand on his chest and pushed him back with strength that overwhelmed his.
“I also know that the poultice I administered to you is laced with a powerful drug to induce sleep, and it is about to knock you out.”
Blackness.
Jon blinked, and woke. His mouth was very dry. He was in a bed, wrapped with clean white linens. He was unbound, and while the door to his simple room was shut, it didn't appeared to be barred. What –
He had been tricked. That stung. Overwhelmed, overpowered, any of those he could have taken. He did, after all, have limits, particularly in the physical department. Being tricked – that hurt his pride.
The door opened, admitting Noah, carrying a pitcher and a glass. “Good morning,” he crooned. That sly smile. He poured water into the glass. “I hope you slept well.”
Parched though Jon was, anger won out. He smacked the glass out of the man's hand, and barely heard it shatter against the wall. Feeling surprisingly hale, he jerked out of bed and seized Noah by the shirt collar. “What did you do to me, old man?”
The man managed to carefully set the pitcher aside while held by Jon. “I will explain. But be careful how you step. You have been asleep eight days and may not have much in the way of balance.”
“I--” eight days? He was supposed to start his graduate work at Yale last week! His head felt full of cotton. He wanted to laugh, or cry, or something. What he did do, mercifully, was let go of the old man's shirt, which went against the fury he felt at the man's trickery. “You old fool. The wickedness you have done is beyond forgiveness.”
Noah only nodded. “Be at ease. Curse me if you will, for I will not defend the means I used. Allow me to explain.”
Jon nodded. He wished he had drunk the water first.
“When I saw your future reflected in the dream, I saw several possible outcomes of our first visit. Only the one I took would have kept you here. Along the others, you would have died. While you slept, I had several doctors, ones I trust not to go to the WHO or...others...check you out and certify you as healthy and free of any disease, mundane or otherwise that they can detect. I did this because...
Noah reached out a hand and touched Jon's forehead. He tried to slap the hand away, but he seemed to have lost all coordination. Chills suddenly swept his body.
Noah nodded. “Yes, this is what I saw.”
Jon was hot and cold all at once. Spots danced on his vision. His teeth clenched and his back and legs cramped, forcing him to his knees. “W---wh---you did something,” he finally stuttered in accusation.
“I have done nothing to cause this,” Noah said. Jon could hardly hear him. “Truth is I know not what is happening to you right now. But I can tell you that you will survive this. Here.” From somewhere he produced another cup and poured from the pitcher. A very small amount. He held Jon closely and put the cups to his lips. It wasn't water, but something bitter that sucked what little moisture was left out of his mouth.
“Only a little, to help your mind accept and embrace that what is about to happen to you will pass, and perhaps distance your mind from the worst of it.” Echoes of a voice from far distant. Jon was now somehow on his feet and led into Noah's living room. He saw other men, and smelled thick smoke and incense and maybe something else. These men had paint on their faces and the fire swirled and crackled around them, it seemed. Drums and chanting. He was laid on a deerskin rug with a cushion beneath his head, and ropes were tied around his hands and his feet. Something thick was placed between his teeth – leather? As convulsions and heat and chills swept over him, the lights in the room danced and melted into the beating of his heart and the thumping of the drums and the voices in chorus.
As coherence slipped away the last thing he saw was Noah's face and him saying: “Hush...these next few hours will not be pleasant for you at all.”
He couldn't stop himself from trying to scream the entire time.
Some time later, the living room was empty. Jon looked around, not having really fallen asleep but not having been truly awake. He looked around and realized he was unbound. The leather was gone from his mouth, and he surprisingly had the strength to stand up. In fact, he felt he could run if he wanted to.
Noah came into the room and smiled at Jon. “I see you are feeling better.”
Jon nodded. “Yes...I am. I thought I was going to die and I feel fine now.” He remembered the old man denying he'd caused the affliction, and decided he believed him. “You knew this was going to happen to me, didn't you?”
Noah nodded. “You wouldn't have believed me had I told you. I saw you screaming in my dreams. Sometimes, you were here, in my living room. Other times you were not. In every possibility I saw other than what came to pass, it ended poorly for you. I see you know what it was now.”
Jon blinked. The symptoms he had...the Pandemic. Young men and women with symptoms like his...sometimes dying screaming, horrible deaths no one could treat. “I'm afflicted...this isn't possible.” Was it the beast, Kilgatili that had attacked him that had infected him? Or something else? He started for the door. “I have to go to the hospital. What if I get others sick?”
“Stop!” The simple command ground Jon to a halt. “Modern medicine can do nothing for you. It would have done so already for the others afflicted if it could. You are not the first of our people to have come down with the Pandemic. Not even the first on this reservation. It seems there is a significantly higher number of those of our native blood so afflicted. Perhaps because of the isolation of our blood running thicker together. But regardless I have seen it before in person and judge it not to be contagious as infectious diseases are known to be. The other walkers of the spirit world I have spoken with agree with me that it is likely an affliction of the spirit of sorts and not a disease.”
Not a disease? Jon recalled the sheer terror and pain associated with the event. “And the ritual? What was that, an exorcism?”
Noah laughed. “No, just a meditation ritual, some parts from the old ways, others from new, a little peyote to help ease the passage of time and wash away the most traumatic parts of your experience by helping you embrace it rhythmically, nothing more. Yours was particularly...powerful. The worst I've ever seen. The symptoms usually aren't nearly as strong.”
Jon held his head in his hands. So much to process. “You say you've seen others. What happened to them?”
Noah sighed. “This is the last thing I need to warn you of before I send you on your way. I have known of four cases. One from this reservation, two from other tribes out of state brought to me, and a fourth from a non-native family of deeply religious upbringing who still found a 'medicine man's' guidance better than a hospital.
“The first two we sent to hospitals within the first month, after the symptoms returned. They both got better, but shortly after both of them met with 'accidents.'”
“Accidents?”
“Yes,” the old man nodded. “No foul play proven, and the law didn't care to try and investigate too deeply. But it was known that a couple of individuals had been seen near the hospital with the sign of the Ouroboros.” Noah made a circle in the air. “The image of the snake eating its own tail. It is an old, old symbol. Those called the Atharim are known to wear it.”
“The Atharim,” Jon repeated, sounding out the word.
Noah nodded. “There are more than demons that are a danger to people who follow the old ways. The Atharim are known to few, but it is known they hunt the things of the old world, the demons and gods of old myths. Including our own myths. We know of them because they have hunted us. Even in recent times.”
“What?” Jon said. “I've never heard of such a thing.”
“Have you ever thought about what really happened to my ancestors the Cherokee in the events that preceded and became known as the Trail of Tears?” Noah asked. “Think if you will the insanity, the resources, the manipulation that went into uprooting a peaceful, civilized people – the Cherokee were civilized! – and made to move a thousand miles, killing many along the way.”
Jon pondered this as Noah continued: “Think further how the insanity was compounded by the fact that those acts were committed by the same government that had told itself it was not allowed to commit the acts in the first place. What hand guided those acts? Only some entity wrought with true madness...or one with an ulterior motive. We few Cherokee elders remaining who know the experiences as passed down from generations past believe that several members of the Atharim had infiltrated the federal government and either instigated or allowed this atrocity and others happen.”
Jon nodded. The old man made sense with his logic. Kick them off the land, scatter them...someone, or an organization, that found the old ways a threat would have a much easier time eliminating the stories, the spirit walkers, the lore, even perhaps the gods if they were to have still walked among man at that time.
“Your symptoms will return,” Noah warned. “You must not ever seek a hospital and you must get out of public eye if the symptoms come upon you suddenly. It is unlikely they will be as strong as you experienced here. It may feel as simple as a cold at first.”
This was too much. Jon had had enough. Hiding when he sneezed? “Thank you for what you've done...I think. But if you don't mind, I want some way to get on with my life. See if I can continue on at Yale. Study law and do something more useful than being drugged in a sleep for days. The world is a mess out there, demons and spirit walking and afflictions aside and it is passing me by.”
“Very well. You should know there is an experienced doctor of Native American folklore, Dr. Kevin Anderson, at New Haven. He will have access to many collections of oral tales, and he may be of more help to you. Maybe there is something in our myths that can be put together to make sense of it all.” Noah smiled. “I've already taken the liberty of contacting him. He will be handling your...late arrival and ensure you are excused from it. I will have your truck gassed up and loaded with supplies.” The old man seemed quite sad.
“What else can you tell me about what you have seen?” Jon asked, but Noah shook his head.
“Too much knowledge of the future is dangerous. What I could tell you wouldn't make any difference anyway. Go get your law degree and I may or may not see you in the spirit world.”
“Fair enough,” Jon replied. “But you never told me what happened to the other two youth you treated. The ones that didn't go to the hospital?”
The man nodded. “The third was a girl of about 16. Her symptoms disappeared after several months and within a year left the reservation. I know nothing else about what happened to her.”
“And the fourth?”
Noah paused and turned his back to Jon. Finally he said simply, “He is buried behind my house.”