Messenger of Fear Novella #1 Read Free Page B

hoping Barton would get the clue and ready himself for the game. But he wasunprepared when the first of the creatures appeared.
    And oh, oh, oh, the cunning creativity, the wicked sadism of the Game Master. For the creatures that ran one by one, screaming from the mist, were very much like pigs, with one essential difference: each had Lisa Bayless’s head.
    Barton made no move to attack the first Lisa pig until that monstrosity, that violation of nature’s laws, attacked him, snapping at him with his erstwhile teacher’s teeth and emitting the outraged squeals of a pig.
    Only after suffering numerous bites, and only after wasting thirty seconds on the big clock that conveniently hovered in the air just before the chalkboard, did Barton seize the machete and, with a scream of rage and frustration, hack at the animal’s neck.
    The first blow was poorly aimed and bit into the pig’s back, eliciting squeals of pain. Barton had risen to weakened legs and seemed already to be at the end of his strength. Yet he drew back the machete and aimed his next blow more carefully.
    It took three tries before he managed to hack the head free and drop it into the sack. Whereupon thesecond creature came rushing at him.
    For a while Barton managed. He hacked and swore, hacked and cried, hacked with snot running from his nose to join the blood that soon covered him.
    He reached thirteen heads, but for him the end came with a full minute left on the clock. He just stopped, sank to the ground, sitting in a puddle of gore, and dropped the machete.
    He sat weeping, dull eyed, destroyed before the game even ended.
    Murder is not so easy when it is face-to-face. Murder is not so easy when you must nearly drown in the blood you shed.
    â€œHave I performed my duty, Messenger of Isthil?” the Master of the Game asked.
    â€œYou have. You may withdraw.”
    The Game Master departed more quickly than he had arrived, perhaps rushing off to test some other wicked person’s courage.
    â€œNow, Barton Jones, you will endure the Piercing,” Messenger said. “Mara.”
    I had hoped somehow that it might be Messenger who took on the Piercing, but of course Messenger’stime was drawing slowly to a close, while mine was just beginning. I had to learn, to grow into this hideous duty.
    I drew Barton, unresisting, to his feet. I moved behind him, reached around, and placed one hand over his heart and the other against his blood-slicked head.
    I could feel his heart beating. I could feel the spasms of silent sobs. I glanced at Messenger as though he might yet spare me, but I saw only calm patience in those blue eyes.
    Thus, I dived deep within Barton’s mind.
    It is an almost impossible experience to convey. There is nothing like it in ordinary life, in which the mind is an inviolate sanctuary where others may not intrude. Words fail, because how can you describe what has no counterpart in human experience?
    I could say that his fears were like rats fleeing from a flashlight’s beam, perhaps, but that is only an inadequate analogy.
    I pursued those fears, sensing them one by one, reading their intensity, dismissing the weaker ones, searching always for the darkest place where the last and greatest rat would hide trembling.
    At last, knowing my answer, hating that knowledge, hating what I had seen and learned, and hating most what my duty now required, I rose from his mind and drew my red hands away.
    â€œHe has one fear greater than all others,” I said.
    â€œWhat is that fear?” Messenger asked solemnly.
    â€œHe once saw a YouTube video of a monkey being eaten by a python,” I said. “The image has terrified him ever since. The monkey was alive.” I hesitated. “The monkey took a very long time to be slowly, inexorably crushed and finally consumed.”
    â€œWhat?” This word was a sob. “What? What? WHAT? WHAT?”
    Panic set in and Barton tried to run, but found his feet