The Fallen

The Fallen The Fallen series, book 1 Thomas E. Sniegoski

For Spenser, gone but never forgotten. And Mulder, the best pally a guy could have.

I’d like to thank my wife and guardian angel (with a pitchfork), LeeAnne, for everything that she does. Without her love and support, the words wouldn’t come, so the stories could never be told.

And to Christopher Golden, collaborator and friend, thanks for the gift of confidence when I wasn’t quite sure I could pull it off. It is greatly appreciated.

Thanks to the Termineditor, Lisa Clancy, and her assistant supreme, Lisa Gribbin.

Special thanks are also due to Mom and Dad (for that Catholic upbringing), Eric Powell, Dave Kraus, David Carroll, Dr. Kris Blumenstock and the gang over at Lloyd Animal Medical Center, Tom and Lorie Stanley, Paul Griffin, Tim Cole and the usual suspects, Jon and Flo, Bob and Pat, Don Kramer, John, Jana, Harry and Hugo, Kristy Bratton, and Mike and Anne Murray. An extra-special thanks to Rosolivia Bryant.

PROLOGUE

LEBANON, TENNESSEE, 1995

The Tennessee night was screaming.

Eric Powell ran clumsily through the tall grass behind his grandparents’ house. He stumbled down the sloping embankment toward the thick patch of swampy woods beyond, hands pressed firmly against his ears.

“I’m not listening,” he said through gritted teeth, on the verge of tears. “Stop it. Please! Shut up.”

The sounds were deafening, and he wanted nothing more than to escape them. But where? The voices were coming from all around.

Eric ran deeper and deeper into the woods. He ran until his lungs felt as if they were on fire, and the beating of his heart was almost loud enough to drown out the sinister warnings from the surrounding darkness.

Almost.

Beneath a weeping willow that had once been a favorite place to escape the stress of teenage life, he stopped to catch his breath. Warily he moved his hands away from his ears and was bombarded with the cacophonous message of the night.

“Danger,” warned a tiny, high-pitched squeak from the shadows by the small creek that snaked through the dark wood. “Danger. Danger. Danger.”

“They come,” croaked another. “They come.”

“Hide yourself,” something squawked from within the drooping branches of the willow before taking flight in fear. “Before it is too late,” it said as it flew away.

There were others out there in the night, thousands of others all speaking in tongues and cautioning him of the same thing. Something was coming, something bad.

Eric fell back against the tree trying to focus, and his mind flashed back to when he first began to hear the warnings. It had been June 25, of that he was certain. The memory was vividly fresh, for it had been only two months ago and it was not easy to forget one’s eighteenth birthday—or the day you begin to lose your mind.

Before that, he heard the world just like any other. The croaking of frogs down by the pond, the angry buzz of a trapped yellow jacket as it threw itself against the screens on the side porch. Common everyday sounds of nature, taken for granted, frequently ignored.

But on his birthday that had changed.

Eric no longer heard them as the sounds of birds chirping or a tomcat’s mournful wail in the night. He heard them as voices, voices that exalted in the glory of a beautiful summer’s day, voices that spoke of joy as well as sadness, hunger, and fear. At first he tried to block them out, to hear them for what they actually were—just the sounds of animals. But when they began to speak directly to him, Eric came to the difficult realization that he was indeed going insane.

A swarm of fireflies distracted him from his thoughts, their incandescent bodies twinkling in the inky black of the nighttime woods. They dipped and wove in the air before him, their lights communicating a message of grave importance.

“Run,” was the missive he read from their flickering bioluminescence. “Run, for your life is at risk.”

And that is just what he did.

Eric pushed off from the base of the tree and headed toward the gurgling sounds of the tiny creek. He would cross it and head deeper into the woods, so far that no one would ever find him. After all, he had grown up here and doubted there was anyone around who knew the woods better.

But then the question came, the same question that the rational part of his mind had been asking since the warnings began.

What are you afraid of?

The question played over and over in his head as he ran, but he did not know the answer.

Eric jumped the creek. He landed on the other side awkwardly, his sneakered foot sliding across some moss-covered rocks and into the unusually cold water.

The boy gasped as the liquid invaded his shoe, and he scrambled to remove it from the creek’s numbing embrace. Its chilling touch spurring him to move faster. He ducked beneath the low-hanging branches of young trees that grew along the banks of the miniature river, then he plunged deeper into the wilderness.

But what are you running from? a rational voice asked, not from the woods around him but from his own mind. His own voice, a calm voice, that sought to override his sense of panic. This voice wanted him to stop and confront his fears, to see them for what they really were. There is no danger, said the sensible voice. There is nobody chasing you, watching you.

Eric slowed his pace.

“Keep running,” urged something as it slithered beneath an overturned stump, its shiny scales reflecting the starlight.

And he almost listened to the small, hissing voice, almost sped up again. But then Eric shook his head and began to walk. Others called to him from the bushes, from the air above his head, from the grass beneath his feet, all urging him to flee, to run like a crazy person, which was exactly what he decided he was.

At that moment, Eric made a decision. He wasn’t going to listen to them anymore. He wasn’t going to run from some invisible threat. He was going to turn around, go back to his grandparents’ home, wake them up, and explain what was happening. He would tell them that he needed help, that he needed to get to a hospital right away.

His mind made up, Eric stopped in a clearing and looked up into the early-morning sky. A thick patch of gray clouds that reminded him of steel wool slowly rubbed across the face of a radiant moon. He didn’t want to hurt his grandparents. They had already been through so much. His mother, their daughter, pregnant and unwed, died giving birth to him. They raised him as if he were their own, giving him all the love and support he could have ever hoped for. And how would he repay them? With more sadness.

Scalding tears flooded his eyes as he imagined what it would be like when he returned to the house and roused the poor elderly couple from sleep. He could see their sad looks of disappointment as he explained that he was hearing voices—that he was nineteen years old and losing his mind.

And as if in agreement, the voices of the night again came to life: chattering, wheezing, tremulous, quavering, gargling life.

“Run, run,” they said as one. “Run for your life, for they have arrived!”

Eric looked around him; the ruckus was deafening. Since his bout with madness began, never had the voices been this loud, this frantic. Maybe they suspected he was coming to his senses. Maybe they knew that their time with him would soon be ending.

“They are here! Flee! Hide yourself! It is not too late. Run!”