Legion's Arc

Chapter 8 of 22

Dawn light leaked through the barn boards above. Diana sat in the cellar dirt with the bark book open on her knees. The torn shirt lay against her chest, tucked under her jacket, close to her heart. Her ankle still throbbed. She could read the pages now. The drawings showed men becoming beasts, and beneath them, marks she was beginning to understand. In the walls, Legion waited. It felt her voice through a thousand small bodies. The human part of it clung on, but the hunger pushed harder every hour. It wanted her. It wanted to feed. Mark fought to hold the swarm still. If he broke now, he would kill the only person who could turn the pages that might save him. The barn began to rattle. Rats poured through cracks in the roof and dropped through the hole above. They fell like rain, one after another, soft thuds on the dirt around her. Diana did not run. She could not. She kept her eyes on the book and read. The floor filled with rats. They climbed over her boots and circled her legs. Their black eyes shone in the gray light. The hunger swelled in every one of them. Legion strained against it. Hold, Mark told himself. Hold. Do not touch her. Diana reached the last page. She spoke the words on it slow and clear. Then she closed the book and looked up. "I understand now, Mark. I know what to do. But not down here." The swarm froze. For one breath the hunger and the man pulled in opposite directions. Diana did not move. She trusted the eyes she had seen in the pack. She trusted her husband was still there. The rats rushed toward her. They did not bite. They packed together beneath her, body on body, a rising floor of fur. They lifted her from the dirt. Her boots left the ground. The mass swelled higher, careful under her weight, and carried her up toward the broken hole. Diana clutched the book to her chest with one hand and the shirt with the other. The living platform pushed her through the opening. She rolled onto the rotting boards of the barn above. The swarm drained back into the cellar behind her. She lay on the floor and breathed the cold air. She was out. Her ankle screamed, but she was free of the hole. Legion had held itself together long enough to lift her. It had not touched her with a single tooth. A lone bloated rat crept from the cellar edge and watched her with small black eyes. Mark, waiting. Diana pushed herself up on her elbows and met its gaze. "The book says it can’t be undone," she said. “Mark… it won’t reverse. It can’t be undone Mark!” The rat's eyes held on her. Then it turned and slipped into the dark, and she knew he had heard.