ON THE CUSP OF MADNESS
Major Richard Blaine and his Spartan 300 have just survived a meeting with a mocking all-powerful entity.
Why did it let them pass?
ON THE CUSP OF MADNESS
“I have harnessed the shadowsthat stride from world to world to sow death and madness.”
- Oberführer Reinhardt König
“Who the devil was that?” gaspedEvans.
“You just answered your ownquestion, Eric,” I managed to get out.
André stepped even farther fromme. “átkozott vagy!
I nodded. “Sometimes it does feelas if I am damned.”
Rachel lightly touched myshoulder from behind.
“The angel who saved you earlierdid not think so. Whether she was your Helen or someone else entirely does notmatter. The angel thought you worthy of being saved.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “And sodo I.”
Amos clamped a hand on my othershoulder.
“So do we all, Rick. We all lookat your bandaged hands and see the flinch of pain on your face when you thinkwe aren’t looking, and we know ….”
His voice thickened, and Theotook over for him,
“That the worth of a man is not from what people call himbut from the pain he’s willing to suffer for others.”
I cleared my throat.
“Thank you.But we have some miles to cover before we reach Oradour-sur-Glane. And trustme, Spartans, we want to reach it long before sundown.”
The mottled undergrowth andtwisted trees thinned as we marched. Unseen things crawled and scurriedin the branches above us which seemed to reach down like gnarled fingers.
A clearing teased us from yardsaway. I didn’t know if I was glad or sad to be nearing the martyred village. Itdidn’t matter.
We had to cross that Rubicon andresign ourselves to survive the consequences. Destiny beckoned … along with alot of death I was afraid … past and future.
Vincent said, “Did, ah, your DarkPassenger tell you how soon that unit of Nazi psychos will reach us, Major?”
“No, Ant. She tells me a lot ofthings … but not everything. But she did tell me the German High Command is nothappy with Senior Colonel Dr, Oskar Dirlewanger.”
Risking a thump aside the head,Taylor asked, “Why, Major?”
“He’s a psychopath, Stew. It’snot something you can turn on and off like tap water. They ordered him and hisunit to come here from Poland weeks ago ….”
“Weeks ago?” blustered Floyd.“They should have already been here.”
I nodded.
“Yes, but the SeniorColonel is a slave to his compulsion to kill. He’s stopped from time to time tofeed his addiction and those same ones of his men.”
Taylor squeaked, “So, he could behere anytime.”
“That’s about the size of it,”growled Theo, “so put the muscle to the hustle and let’s get to that damnedvillage. Ah, pardon my French, Rac, ah, Nurse Reynolds.”
“Pardoned, sergeant,” laughedRachel, “if you gentlemen will pick up the pace.”
“You heard the lady,” I said.“Pick up the pace.”
The land seemed to slope oddly asif our eyes were viewing it from the wrong end of a telescope.
Worse, our feetfelt all tangled up in waves of gravity like the force had become tangible in some high tide manner.
My head felt light, and mystomach felt at high tide along with the strange gravity tugging at my leadenlegs.
“Watch your steps, men,” urgedTheo. "You do not want to fall down in this cursed forest."
Amos muttered to me, “Is the airstarting to smell … odd to you, Rick?”
“Gentlemen!” I snapped, “takeyour helmets from off your belts and put them on?”
“Why?” grumbled Dimitri.
Theo said harshly, “Because the Majorsaid to do it.”
Dimitri did it, but he hated thecooped-up feeling it gave him despite the cool oxygen jets and other stimulantsit breathed into his nostrils.
"Because what we are about to find in the air in that stricken village may be poisonous to breathe unfiltered."
"What of me?" asked André. "I have no helmet."
“The camera Sentient gave youwill act as a filter.”
“If I die anyway?”
Cloverfield drawled, “We will alwaysmiss your sunny disposition.”
André gave the British agent a look he usually reserved for me. Cloverfield actually seemedamused.
Rachel and I kept our Spartan helmets on that only looked Greek whenever we marched.
They were futuristic as well and acted accordingly. So we simply watched the others dontheir futuristic helmets that looked nothing so much as fancy deep-sea gear.
We edged around the last grove ofnightmarish trees and stopped dead in our tracks.
The ground no longer seemed to slope,it dipped down dramatically into what must have been a lush valley but was nowcovered in seared, burnt grass.
As sometimes happened with mySentient-altered helmet, I saw a map over my right eye which indicated thatthis land had always been even and flat.
I even saw an image of what this landonce looked like beneath the map.
“Be very cautious, Gentlemen.Sentient has shown me this has always been flat land.”
Taylor rasped, “Wh-What changedit Major? How?”
“König. When he opened a door betweenrealities, our dimension recoiled at the unnatural intrusion.
Feeling raped, the very landrebelled and thrust itself away from the touch of what it felt unclean andloathsome and vile.”’
Amos forced out, “Is that whatkilled the Nazis and the villagers?”
I shook my head.
“Even Sentientdoes not know. But when you open a door to the Great Darkness, its denizens scurryin like hungry cockroaches … or worse. And they came in ... hungry.”
I shivered, “Be on guard,friends. We are deep in enemy territory in more ways than one.”
