Ephemeral (The Countenance)
Read Ephemeral (The Countenance) Online
Authors: Addison Moore
Table of Contents
Ephemeral
The Countenance Book 1
by Addison Moore
Copyright © 2012 by Addison Moore
addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com
Cover by Addison Moore Publishing
Interior art by Regina Wamba
Editors: Amy Eye, Sarah Oaklief
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.
Books by Addison Moore
Ethereal
(Celestra Series Book 1)
Tremble
(Celestra Series Book 2)
Burn
(Celestra Series Book 3)
Wicked
(Celestra Series Book 4)
Vex
(Celestra Series Book 5)
Expel
(Celestra Series Book 6)
For my husband and children.
You inspire me every day.
Preface
I used to believe in things, in people, in places, and names—concrete forms of life that end at some point in the unknowable future. I used to believe memories were infallible—that they could never collapse around you like a house of cards or burn to cinders before ever touching the ground.
People vanish all the time. Other people. You hear about it on the news, see their smiling faces staring back at you on milk cartons—their pictures plastered around town like wanted posters. But it was a world within a world, and you innately knew this could never really happen.
I used to believe in death. I used to believe once they put you in that box and tucked you away for one very long night, it was finished. The sunlight, fresh air, a warm embrace, they would never be yours again. It was the final vanishing act—your curtain pulled down and covering your casket. That was the day it would all start anew. Staring into the face of God, awaiting your final judgment.
But I was wrong about everything.
I had my name, my life, and my eternal judgment revoked in one passing hour at the hands of madmen who share my bloodlines.
They took everything but my memory. They tried and failed, and now I’m nothing more than a liability—a spark in a bed of dried timber, waiting to unleash an inferno. I don’t know how long I can go before they stop me or if they even care.
I used to believe so easily, and now I strain the most insignificant details from each passing day as if they were poison.
I know one solid truth. Everything about this new world is a lie.
I’m going to infiltrate their ranks—dismantle their kingdom—take them down until they all vanish, evaporate like smoke from the planet. I plan to erase any memory of them as if they had never happened.
Or I’ll die trying.
And I just might.
1
In Memory of Me
In the grand scheme of things, you’ll be dead a lot longer than you’ll ever be alive.
I marinate in that truth, baste in the beauty of its wisdom while peering out at the dull emerald world. I fumble through dense woods with roots that race across the forest floor like wild, petrified snakes. Wisps of lamp-lit fog twist throughout the narrow trails as gnarled branches coil around the evergreens.
Something stirs from behind, disrupts the silence with the heavy crush of leaves. I jump—startled, as though waking from a very bad dream. My chest thumps in rhythm to the pounding in my head.
“Hello?” I call out.
I try to remember how I got here. The last solid memory I have is driving to my boyfriend Tucker’s house to rip him a new one for sleeping with Megan Bartlett, a girl I know from volleyball. I was distracted with rage, the light turned green, and I never saw the other car coming. Then the crash—I remember kissing the windshield as I bristled through it at a horrific velocity.
A groan emits from the branches—more rattling.
My feet crush over a bed of dried maple leaves, filling in the haunting void of silence.
A hard thud lands square behind me, and I turn slow on my heels.
It would have been understandable to see a deer, a bear, or even another human being. But this…
A whimper gets caught in my throat and drowns out the idea of a scream. My heart seizes and I freeze.
It’s a man—a thing, his grey skin decomposed beyond recognition, exposing dried muscle over bone, one eye missing, teeth all but gone.
It staggers forward, slashing the air with a violent swing.
I start in on a full-blown sprint, trip over an errant branch and land hard on my chest.
It comes at me—falls on its knees beside me omitting a sharp putrid stench. I let out a gurgled cry—twist and claw, scampering to my feet.
Its crooked fingers tear my sweater, easy as shredding paper.
I bolt deeper into the thicket. The forest gyrates, turns into a viridian kaleidoscope as I fumble through a dizzying maze of branches.
Loud guttural moans vibrate throughout the woods. I can feel its footsteps seconds behind. The forest darkens. The fog presses in and coats my throat with its oily haze.
Panic enlivens me. Adrenaline courses through my veins creating a heartbeat in my ears.
None of this is real—this is hell—a trapdoor within a nightmare.
My breathing quickens and my head starts to spin as I navigate the spindles, the heavily shadowed woods.
My mother once said most people are prone to run through this world blind. I remember her words and the soft mannerism in which she spoke them as I stumble from branch to branch, ripping a hole in my jeans, and losing my jacket on the offshoot of a pine.
The creature gains speed, touches me. It grazes over my hair with its necrotic fingertips. I race blindly through the woods, pushing past the pain searing through my skull. My foot catches on a root and I crash to the ground with finality.
I glance back, fully expecting to find the decaying body, the stench of death, but instead I see a boy my age—a look of surprise ripe on his face. He pulls me to safety behind the trunk of a pine and then lunges at the monster. He plucks a knife from his back pocket and wrestles the decrepit beast as it latches onto his face.
I pick up a loose branch and give a hard jab at the creature’s groin. It gives a soft gurgle as if laughing at my efforts.
A rock the size of a football catches my eye. I hoist it off the ground and lob it at the tangle of flesh rolling around in front of me.
It hits the boy on the side of the head, and he lets out an agonizing groan.
Shit!
He flips the creature and lands it hard on its back. Its face holds a lavender hue, blue lips, unnatural bumps and lesions over its cheek and decomposed forehead.
The boy pummels its malformed face. He digs his knife into the eye of the beast, over and over until it ceases to writhe beneath him.
He jumps up and cleans his blade against the soft trunk of a maple with two easy swipes.
The creature sizzles. Its ragged clothes engulf in flames quick as a grassfire before extinguishing in a ball of smoke.