Colt rolled onto his back and pulled his revolver out. He pointed it toward the treeline.

  SIDEARM EQUIPPED:

  Colt Single Action Army — .45

  5/6

  He reached into his satchel. Flicked open the ammo box. Grabbed a round, thumbed open the cylinder and slid the bullet in, then snapped it shut against his leg.

  6/6

  He aimed it back at the trees.

  He waited. His heart racing. His hand clamped tight around the grip. His breaths came out ragged and he didn’t know if anything was even chasing him.

  All he could think about was Jeff’s eyes. How dead they were. The desperation in Henry’s moans while he reached for him from the tree.

  He got to his knees and pushed himself up.

  He looked at the sky. The violet patch hung near the mountains with lightning flickering inside it. What were they building out there? What were they doing that could turn dead men into whatever Jeff, Earl and Henry had become?

  He looked back toward the field.

  He brushed the dirt off his coat and started running.

  The field was empty. Just grass bending in the wind and the moon sitting low on the horizon. He ran toward where the village should be, where it had been last time, but there was nothing. Just more grass. More empty space.

  He stopped and turned in a circle. Nothing.

  “Where is it?” he said out loud.

  He walked forward with his hands out like he might touch something. Like the air might feel different where the barrier sat. But there was nothing except cold wind on his palms.

  He turned and walked the other direction. Still nothing.

  “Come on,” he muttered. “It’s gotta be here somewhere.”

  He started running again, cutting across the field at an angle. Maybe he’d come out of the trees facing the wrong way. Maybe the treeline had turned him around.

  But the field kept going. The barrier didn’t show.

  His boots hit grass and kept hitting grass with nothing changing.

  “Damn it.” He stopped and spun around. “Where the hell is it?”

  He ran back the way he’d come. Then cut left. Then right. The field stayed empty no matter which way he went.

  His breath came faster. Not from running. From something tighter in his chest.

  “It was right here,” he said. His voice came out thin. “I walked through it. Right here.”

  He kept moving. Kept searching. The moon watched him run back and forth across the grass.

  His knees hit the ground.

  He sat there staring at nothing. His hands dropped into his lap.

  “Shit.”

  He focused on the corner of his vision.

  The menu dropped down in front of him.

  PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.10

  Stats

  Status

  Map

  Armory

  Module Bay

  Skills

  Help

  ?????

  ?????

  ?????

  He opened Help. Then Contact.

  Contact: Kevin

  Kevin’s name sat there waiting.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Colt stared at it. His eyes hovered over the word.

  Kevin would know what to do. Kevin had to know what to do. He could send Clay through, and with both of them searching they wouldn’t have a problem finding the barrier.

  But that meant admitting he couldn’t handle this on his own. That meant waking his brother up and dragging him out here because Colt got lost in a field he’d already walked through once.

  He held there for a long moment.

  Then he closed the menu.

  “I can do this,” he said.

  The words came out quiet. He said them again, louder. “I can do this.”

  He stood up and looked around. The field. The treeline. The mountains.

  He looked left.

  Over the curve of a rolling hill, a violet glow sat against the dark sky. Faint but there. The ninja camp. He could see the light bleeding up from whatever they were doing down there.

  His stomach tightened.

  “Lost Child of Esa.”

  The voice came from behind him. It was soft, it was female.

  Colt’s hand went to his revolver and he spun around.

  The white-haired girl stood maybe ten feet away.

  He hadn’t heard her walk up. Hadn’t heard anything. One second the field was empty, and the next she was there like she’d been standing in that spot the whole time.

  Her hair caught the moonlight and looked almost silver. Those blue eyes held on him, calm and steady.

  Colt’s hand stayed on his gun. “You…”

  He’d never heard her speak before. Back at the village she’d stayed quiet, always watching from the edges. Now her voice was clear with nothing shy about it.

  “Your weapon.” She glanced at the treeline. “It makes great noise.”

  Colt let go of the revolver and his hand dropped to his side. “Yeah. I, uh…” He looked back at the trees. “Earl and Jeff. They were walkin’ around out there. But they weren’t—I mean, they were dead. I saw ‘em die. But they were movin’ and their eyes were—”

  “I know,” she said.

  Colt stopped. His mouth stayed open for a second before he closed it.

  She already knew. She knew and she didn’t look surprised.

  “Come.” She turned toward the open field. “My father needs to speak to you.”

  “Toyahdoh sent you?”

  She didn’t answer. Her eyes moved to the violet glow sitting on the horizon and something tightened around her mouth. When she looked back at Colt, her face was flat again.

  Her body shifted. Fur rippled across her skin and her bones cracked and reformed. The white wolf stood where she’d been a second ago.

  She took off running.

  Colt sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Oh, come on.”

  He’d spent the last hour running around this whole damn field like an idiot. His legs were still burning and his lungs were still working hard.

  But he took off after her anyway.

  She was fast. Way faster than him. The distance between them grew with every stride she took.

  “Wait,” Colt said. Not loud enough to carry. He tried again, louder but not quite a yell. “Wait.”

  She didn’t slow down.

  Then she disappeared.

  One second she was there, white fur catching the moonlight. The next she was gone like someone had blown out a candle.

  The barrier. It was right there. He’d been so damn close the whole time.

  Colt’s boots pounded the grass. He could see the spot where she’d vanished. He was close. Ten feet. Five.

  He hit it and pushed through.

  The air changed. The sound changed. Wind and emptiness on oneside. Then, the village spread out in front of him just like before. Lodges in loose circles. Smoke rising from cook fires. The smell of burning wood.

  But something was different.

  The fires were lower than last time. The paths between the lodges sat empty. No children running. No women working by the flames. The whole place felt like it was holding still.

  Colt saw faces watching from doorways. Eyes catching the firelight and then pulling back into shadow. Two men stood at the edge of the village with spears in their hands. They hadn’t been there before.

  The white wolf stood at the entrance to the big building in the center. The one with the painted symbols on the front. Wolves and other shapes Colt still didn’t recognize.

  She looked back at him with those blue eyes. Then she shifted again, bones cracking, fur pulling back. The girl stood there in the same spot.

  Colt walked over. His boots crunched on dirt and dry grass.

  She didn’t say anything. She pulled the hide flap aside and stepped through.

  Colt followed.

  Inside was dim. The fire burned low in the pit at the center and smoke rose through the hole in the roof. The air was thick with sage and that other smell he still couldn’t place.

  Toyahdoh sat cross-legged near the fire. His back was straight and his hands rested on his knees with his palms facing up. His eyes were closed.

  The girl stood by the entrance. She lifted her hand and motioned toward the fire. “Go. Sit.”

  Colt adjusted his coat and walked around the fire pit. He sat down across from Toyahdoh on one of the woven mats.

  His mind was already working through it. How to bring it up. What to say first.

  The coyotes on Earth 447. Tahvo and Naha pretending to be Toyahdoh’s men. The way they knew things they shouldn’t have known.

  The violet patch growing. Spreading across his Earth like a stain.

  Earl and Jeff and Henry walking around with violet dead eyes and nothing left inside them.

  He opened his mouth to speak. “I came here because—”

  “It has begun.”

  Toyahdoh spoke first. His voice cut through Colt’s words like they weren’t there.

  Colt sat back. His jaw tightened. What has begun, he thought. What the hell does that mean.

  “This Earth has been poisoned.” Toyahdoh’s voice was low and even. “It carries a wound that festers. The corruption spreads from that wound like sickness through blood.”

  He opened his eyes. They were white all the way through, no color at all.

  “Many Earths have been poisoned. Some have already died. Their people gone. Their land turned to ash and silence.” He paused. “Others still fight. But the poison is patient. It spreads until there is nothing left to spread into.”

  Colt’s throat went dry. He thought about Jeff reaching for him with those blank eyes. About Henry moaning from the tree. About what might be happening right now on Earth 447, in that city full of people who didn’t know what was coming for them. And that boy, crouching down next to him and his mom with that metal box.

  Toyahdoh looked up toward the smoke rising through the hole in the roof.

  “Esa. The Father. The Giver of Breath. The Noble Wolf who shaped the first people from clay and wind.” He paused. “He searched for a cure to this poison for many winters. More winters than the stars can count.”

  Toyahdoh stood. He walked to the clay pots on the low table and poured two cups of that dark liquid. He came back and sat down, handing one to Colt.

  “Sometimes words cannot show you what you need to see.”

  He lifted his cup and drank it in one swallow.

  He set the empty cup down and held out his hand.

  “Follow me.”

  Colt looked at the cup in his palm. The liquid inside was dark and it smelled sweet with something bitter underneath. Same as before.

  He thought about the last time. The vision. The anger. Watching himself raise a knife at Clay with violet eyes staring back from the blade.

  His hand tightened on the cup.

  He tipped it back and drank.

  The taste hit the back of his throat and slid down warm.

  He set the cup aside and reached out. His hand found Toyahdoh’s.

  He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth.

  He held Toyahdo’s hand tight, and let the drink take hold.