Freedom

Chapter 49

We walked for a full hour after we woke and took our bearings following the bizarre encounter with what had to be some kind of anomaly. I hadn't shared my theory about how it had affected us with Velvet; nor had I shared my side of things. She hadn't asked.

We saw a lot of things in the Forest. Spiderwebs stretched between trees, very Tolkien, beautiful places where small pools had formed, and we crossed them by jumping from rock to rock. Great trees that towered like California redwoods.

At no time was there any sign of people. No stray casings on the ground, no bodies, no remnants of campfires, nothing. Either barely anyone ever came to these parts of the Forest, or there was some kind of janitorial service.

And yet Velvet seemed to know where to go, though I was absolutely convinced she'd never been here before. There was no way for her to truly orientate herself – we had a compass, but without knowing where we were, it could only do us so much good. With GPS offline, we were lost. But she seemed to have a destination. We held up a particularly thick tangle of trees, and she considered for a moment, then marched off north.

"How do you know where we're going?"

She pointed down. "The slope."

"We're going downhill."

Velvet nodded. "To the valley."

"Don't tell me we're searching for the Hermit," I joked.

"We are."

I stopped. Everyone knows the Hermit's a myth. Actually, I'd figured the valley was a myth, too. You know – you've heard of it. The Valley in the Forest, where the Hermit lives, who's been there since… okay, I don't remember, but it's a really long time. Anyway, the campfire story is that the Valley's so deep in the Forest that no one ever goes in there. Or that no one ever comes back from trying. Which, now that I think about it, is possible, considering the nature of that anomaly – if someone hadn't been looking out for us, those drinkers would've drained us.

That was why the mystique of the Forest was so hard to buy into – it doesn't seem like there are any dangers that enough men and guns can't handle. But an anomaly? That could almost make the stories true. If this Valley existed – and Velvet obviously believed that it did – then if it were guarded by something like the Mind Swap Anomaly, it was easy to believe that no one had ever come back. It might also explain why the Hermit never left.

"You're serious."

"I'm serious."

So for such a big deal, such a titanic discovery, we found it pretty easily. We didn't even have to shoot anything. It's my honest belief that it was the Mind Swap Anomaly, and the nest of blood drinkers that preyed on people who fell victim to it, that cut off the Valley from the rest of the forest. If that mysterious stranger hadn't saved us, we would've been finished. Now we were inside the perimeter. I wouldn't call it safe, but with the anomaly behind us, it didn't seem like a deathtrap. That was my thinking. There was only one problem. If we'd fallen to the anomaly, why hadn't our benefactor, the guy who'd protected us from the drinkers? He must have entered its radius – was it because he was alone, and there was no one for him to swap with? But if being alone was enough to get you through the anomaly, surely loners would have reached the Valley – no, not necessarily – there was obviously a big nest of drinkers, and a stalker alone can only protect himself so much.

We were poised at the crest of a steep slope. This was the Valley. No doubt. Too bad we couldn't see it. There was such thick fog down there that all that was visible was the tree line around us, and the tops of the trees below. Above, the sky had turned gray.

"We have to go down there? Into that?"

"Are you a stalker or what?"

"Do you have a death wish or what?"

"Me?" Velvet laughed, and started down the slope. "You don't know the half of it." By the end of that sentence, I'd lost track of her completely. I was still standing there, I didn't follow – because I realized that it was simple. Yes, she did have a death wish. An active one. I knew why. And asking her that outright, even in jest, hadn't been very sensitive.

At least she had a thick skin about it. It wouldn't have been a stalker thing to do to apologize, so I didn't. I just plunged after her into the fog.

"Stay close," I snapped.

"You want to hold hands?"

"Can we?"

"No."

I knew about that too, though I wished that I didn't. I took a couple of deep breaths, checked my 553, and fell in beside her. I couldn't see anything at all.

"Just keep going down," Velvet said, reading my mind.

I don't know how long we walked in the fog. It made me nervous. Trees and shapes would come out of nowhere. The fog made you see things that weren't there, shapes and movement, not good when you're already on edge.

"We're getting close," Velvet said. A sudden shape bloomed ahead, a pillar of stone. It was ancient and cracked, overgrown with vines, and leaning somewhat. It looked like to me like something from ancient Greece or something, not that I'm an expert. Velvet paused, holding aside her MPL to reach out and lay her hand on its surface. "How many stalkers do you think have laid eyes on this?" she wondered aloud.

Not very many. I'm serious. I don't know why I felt that way, but I did. There was a sense of isolation, of great age – an intangible feeling that few people had ever been among these enormous trees. The Zone, as such, has only existed for half a century – or so the world believes. And yet, here it felt so much older.

I don't know if it was just me, or my hand, or the way that the anomaly had opened my mind, or maybe even the artifacts in my pocket – but it didn't seem at all strange. The Zone toys and changes what we perceive as reality. Shrodinger would've loved it here.

The place we were, was it really on any map? Were we even still in the Zone? Who could know? I took out my PDA, but the screen was dead. This place was protected. Loners could not enter, and neither could groups or pairs – without someone to intervene on their behalf. Now Velvet and I didn't have to watch out for anomalies, we were the anomalies. Humans weren't supposed to be here.

The trees had thinned out, and the ground we walked on was clear and open. That was impossible; from above, we had seen a canopy of unbroken treetops. Neither of us said anything, though I knew Velvet could not have failed to notice.

The Mind Swap Anomaly formed a ring around this valley, much liked the supposed barrier that kept stalkers from the Center. We had woken inside that ring. Before coming here, I'd scoffed at the notion that the Zone was sentient or mystical, like stalkers gossip about around the fire at night. Not anymore. My respect for the mystic and unknown was growing. My travels in the caverns deep beneath the Zone had opened my eyes and my mind to things I'd never dreamed of. To see the psyche of another person from the inside – it's not something that can be manifested or described. Or forgotten. What I'd seen in Velvet's mind was not literal. It was a representation, an elaborate metaphor. I felt like if I could understand what it all meant – then everything would change.

We walked on, and suddenly what I felt beneath my feet was no longer grass "Look down," I said to Velvet. She stopped. Color seemed to have faded from our world. The gray fog. The murky ground. Even we ourselves had been reduced to dark silhouettes.

We stood on a gigantic cog, a gargantuan gear that was buried in the soil, bigger than anything I had ever seen.

I stepped back, onto the grass, which was getting taller as we moved in, now as high as Velvet's knees. We kept moving forward. There was a pedestal on a block of marble, a two-toned pistol resting on it. We didn't touch it, though Velvet's eyes lingered on it, and she even turned to look back as we moved on, gazing at it until it was lost in the fog.

The ground was flat here. There was no more incline to guide us – yet I doubted we were going the wrong way. The next shape to appear was familiar. I stopped, as did Velvet. We both stared at it for several long moments. It was a kiosk. Posten Norge.

Velvet started to turn, but I beat her to it. Sure enough, the grass beneath our feet had turned to asphalt, and behind us stood the traffic signal.

"Don't," I said, stopping her. She didn't listen, though. I grabbed her and covered her eyes. She held onto me without protest. A crumpled, bloody letter was trapped beneath my foot. Velvet's shoulders were shaking. I put my arms around her. Because I knew – because I'd seen, firsthand, everything that had led to this, I didn't need to think about what could hit her so hard that she would forego her hatred for closeness and let herself be held. I knew. I didn't have to ask.

The scene was gone, and we were standing in grass again. Velvet pulled free of me and moved away, keeping her back turned. I stared helplessly at her narrow shoulders, and the fog alone couldn't completely muffle her sobs. I waited. There was nothing but the fog around us now. This place had nothing to show me, and that was the difference between us.

I could tell, even through the haze, that Velvet was wiping her eyes. I knelt quickly to pick up the letter, which was still there. I didn't stare at the dark stains on the envelope, I just tucked it away and straightened as she turned back to me, pistol in raised. There was enough murder in her eyes to make what I'd done in that hallway look like a playful scuffle. Her hand was trembling.

She started to speak, but I didn't recognize the words. She was speaking Norwegian. She seemed to catch herself, and changed back to English. "How do you know?"

I didn't move. What could I say? "I saw."

After what felt like a long time, she lowered the gun and turned away again. There was no time for anything else, because an incredible wail sounded through the fog, not something that could be described.

I heard thudding footsteps, and I knocked Velvet out of the way just as the Blood Demon burst from the fog. I narrowly avoided his swipe, and rolled to my feet. Velvet leapt up and put her MPL to her shoulder. She wasn't crying now. She leaned in, squinting at the fog.

Back to back, neither of us made a sound. I readied my carbine. The fog swirled and swam, showing me more demons that I could count, but there was only one. Or was there? My right hand was suddenly on fire.

"Run," I said, but even as I said it, the Demon came again. I put up the 553 to block his swing, but the creature just smashed it aside, destroying it thoroughly. I fell back, but scrambled out of the way and ran for it.

Shapes came out of the fog, a Ferris Wheel, a merry-go-round. Tombstones. A platform lined with gallows. I dodged through, rolling beneath a railing, vaulting a concrete barrier, and running into a miniature city, where the streets were a meter across, and the buildings were as tall as I was. I could hear the Demon bulling through it behind me.

Velvet appeared. She opened fire with her MPL, but the bullets had little effect on the monster. It turned in her direction, but I couldn't have that. I skidded to a stop, turned, and charged back toward it. She shouted something, but I wasn't listening. The thing turned back and swung at me, and all I could do was drop and skid underneath. Velvet rushed in, but one blow sent her crashing through buildings.

The demon towered over us and the buildings both. A hand the size of manhole cover held me to the ground. I got the Desert Eagle out of its holster and took aim. The Demon's head was as enormous, and with the tendrils around its mouth spread, it looked too big to fight. Gray scales, bony protrusions. Two small, but intensely red eyes. The tendrils spread wider. I took aim, but I could tell the head was too well armored. There was no time. I jerked the gun down and fired into the creature's knee as many times as I could pull the trigger.

It reeled back, letting out another ear-piercing scream that seemed to shake the ground. The huge hand opened, and I fell to the ground, landing hard enough to see stars. When I sat up, the Demon had disappeared into the fog, though I could hear it moving away. The sounds were fading. I fought to my feet and hurried to Velvet, who was lying in the wreckage of several downtown buildings.

Groaning, she sat up, and I helped her to her feet. Even as I did so, the city was gone. Before us stood a small cottage. There was smoke coming from the chimney, and the windows glowed yellow.