Levi Rem in: A Sculptors Nightmare

Chapter 5: Sea Legs

The cold welcoming of concrete and bricks, the safety of buildings and street lights, all now a facade of security, was now behind Levi. In front of him lay mans oldest enemy, nature, the elements. As deadly as it ever was and just as beautiful. The leaves of the trees were just starting to turn with blots of orange and red placed sporadically in the greenery. Random. Everything is in a constant state of changing, nothing idle. It's usually slow, you don't even notice. A water drop can carve through solid limestone but you never notice the process, only the canyon. As Levi walked in the dirt alongside the weathered road, he wondered how much he'd changed over the years but not noticed. What grooves and cliffs and cracks were chiseled into his canyon. He wondered if the world around him was always changing into the nightmare it is now, if he had missed those signs, too.

The tall mountains in the distance fought the clouds for control over the sky. The snowy peaks like poison coated tips of claws. The wind was a gentle kiss of coolness, the limbs of the trees like a symphony in its wake. The babbling river ran to his side below a small embankment, the bass of the track. It was so picturesque but it felt like a front to the horrors of the last half a day, twisting into grotesque. Everything changes.

The rushing waters clicked in Levi's brain, connected dots. The image of the carving he saw on the wall of the hardware store appeared in his mind, sharp, vivid. The small cabin, the cryptic wavy lines, the cart. The wavy lines had to be water, a tide.

The things he'd seen had been leading him somewhere, to something and this was another piece of the puzzle. He didn't see the full picture but he was supposed to be by the water, that much he was certain. He walked to the edge of the embankment, surveyed it, tested his footing. It looked stable, only a few feet climb down. He lowered himself, putting his legs over and began the not so graceful descent. Losing his footing a few times, rocks and hunks of dirt rolling down.

On the bank of the river the waters weren't as loud as he thought they'd be, they flowed serenely and calmly. The only chaos was the rocks that cut the surface of the water, poking out from the bottom of the river. Levi focused on that, feeling like the dark presence was the water and this town was the bladed rock and he was being pulled along in a direct line to be cut clean in half. Powerless to fight the current. Levi started walking up the small beach, keeping Bright Falls behind him.

Under normal rules, laws of nature, Levi would have walked long enough for the sun to start setting and the stillness the moon brought not far away but it was still uncomfortably noon and bright. The beach slowly started opening up, claiming some of the grassy land. The embankment started falling, meeting with it to create a clearing and that's where Levi spotted it. The cabin.

It was tiny, looked hand built. Weathered wood. Dark. A few small planks hung over the door, held up by wooden supports. The beach in front was connected to a dock that stretched out into the river and next to it, the cart. Two big wooden wheels on one end and two long poles on the other, smaller spokes underneath stopped it from tilting completely over. This was where he was led, what he was supposed to find.

Levi made his way to the front door of the cabin, not stopping to examine the cart along the way, just stealing a peak on the way by. He expected emptiness, nothing. He almost kept walking, not realizing what he saw. He stopped, thought, snapped back. A woman in a white gown laid in the back of the cart.

Levi could tell she was breathing but he also could see she had a glow, an aura. The inverted light. He gripped the revolver he kept tuck under his shirt, in the waistband of his jeans, ready. He reached over, shook her lightly. Gripped the gun tighter. Her eyes opened and she turned to face Levi. She didn't smile. Levi lessened his grip. “Who are you? Where am I?” She said, finally filling the air with something other than wind and crickets and waves, her eyes glossy.