Chapter 6: What’s In The Box?

  Halfway towards the border to Denmark, Erik finally found a trace of the military in the vicinity of Gothenburg. The sun had already set, and the sky had darkened, though it was still not dark out yet.

  He drove through what could only be described as a war zone, complete with craters in the asphalt, military vehicles smashed to pieces and signs of fire long-since diminished. There were hundreds of military personnel and civilians both scattered around the area, dead for what he could only guess was a few weeks at least.

  It was a different kind of devastation than he’d seen until that point. He’d seen bodies and crumbled buildings. It shouldn’t have been much different to see this mass grave mixed with a battlefield and yet it was. This wasn’t something as basic as the aftermath of something bad. This had been war, and Erik’s side had been annihilated in this war.

  Armoured trucks and more than a few tanks littered the roads, not always broken but always abandoned. What made it all worse was that the enemy was nowhere to be seen. Not a single one. The Hellbeasts had devastated this entire stretch of road without a single loss of life on their side. This was magic turned against innocent humans.

  Erik knew it was bad when no one had retrieved the corpses of their fallen comrades. This was the first sight he had found of a proper defence. Even while the kid and his mother had told him of this, he couldn’t quite believe it until now. Erik himself wasn’t indestructible or unkillable. Did that mean these creatures were that much stronger than him?

  As he had stumbled upon this war-torn patch of road, Erik took the opportunity to test how his magic affected guns. While his intuition said it wouldn’t work, largely based on how the knife had fared, it was at least worth a try. He took a rifle lying on the ground in between a couple of soldiers, not knowing which of them it belonged to. He tried holding it.

  Erik had never been part of the military and had never even held a real gun before. He placed the butt firmly against his shoulder to test the comfort. He figured the most comfortable stance was the right stance, otherwise gun manufacturers should redesign their weapons.

  When he felt he had an okay grasp on it, he tried running his magic through the weapon, first from his shoulder. He experienced much more interference now than when he tried with his knife, so he changed the flow to go from his right hand. Like on the butt, he could barely even touch it with his magic.

  Whether it was due to the materials it was made from or not, he just couldn’t get his magic to pass through any component of the weapon satisfactorily like he had with the knife. He had to keep the flow of magic running through the weapon all the way to the bullet and fire it without his magic dissipating. Erik gave up the idea quickly.

  He couldn’t keep the magic flowing to the projectile without touching it, and a projectile he had to hold in his hand was just a small melee weapon, after all.

  Erik left the gun behind. He had no need for it. Erik continued on for an hour or two until he could hardly see anything other than what was right in front of his partly covered headlight and camped for the night.

  The next day he drove past a few other war zones and he was surprised how quickly he reached the Danish region. He turned onto a long bridge and was faced with blockades along the entire highway crossing the bridge, like a long and narrow fortress.

  Hoping there were still people alive in the area, he parked his bike close to the blockade, which was just one vast wall of iron and steel. Before he could call out, he himself was shouted at from a helmet-wearing man atop the wall. The man shouted in Norwegian, which warmed Erik’s heart more than he thought it would. At least some had survived.

  “Hey! This is an active battlefield, what the hell are you doing here?”

  The very question caused Erik to freeze. It wasn’t that he had a good reason to be there, but he wondered what was going through the soldier’s head, seeing a civilian coming from the obviously wrong side of a cordon the size of two countries. He also looked around. ‘Active’ was perhaps not the word he would use to describe the desolate, scorched area.

  “I kind of live here,” Erik attempted. “I need help getting through,” he shouted moments later.

  “Are you armed?” the man questioned in response.

  “I’ve got a knife and some rocks. Oh, and frisbees, if that counts. Some screws.”

  The man stared at Erik. He wasn’t even going to comment on it, Erik could see that. He turned away from Erik.

  “Open the gate! Got a civvie on the other side!” he yelled, then vanished from the edge of the wall.

  Soon after, the gate creaked and opened. Three armed soldiers came out in all haste, two of them going straight for the motorbike and the third leading Erik inside with an arm firmly placed on his back.

  All of them threw several nervous glances further down the road onto the mainland. Erik realised how haggard and tired these officers and soldiers were looking. He hadn’t considered how they felt in this situation.

  Like with Erik, their countries were gone, maybe even their entire families. Everything had been taken from them, and they couldn’t do anything about it. The villains of their story were unkillable. Considering they still had the guts to put their own lives on the line and the will to even put up a fight was… kind of stirring something inside Erik. It was awe-inspiring.

  As they had all entered the military camp, the gate was shut and the tension he could sense all the tension of those around him lightened somewhat. The soldiers pushed his motorbike further away and parked it along a deep green truck along the rails of the bridge before starting to search it. They had also taken his duffel bag, which another officer was already elbows deep in.

  A statuesque, cap-wearing woman, with broad shoulders and a different attire than the other soldiers walked straight towards Erik. Her stature radiated authority and respect, even as she stepped around a pair of army soldiers too busy to eye Erik and talk in whispers to notice her.

  “Good day, sir. My name is General Mathisen. Welcome to Bridgefort, the northernmost European defence zone still standing. May I ask your name?” she greeted, reaching her arm out towards Erik.

  “Afternoon, ma’am. Or sir?” Erik awkwardly attempted. “I’m Erik Fried.”

  “Mathisen is fine, Mr Fried. If I may ask…” Mathisen responded quite formally despite their surroundings. “Have you been out there until now? I hope you haven’t crossed the sea in some heroic attempt at being a complete waste of an idiot?” she then asked, all formality already out the window.

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  She kept her face almost completely dulled of any emotion, but Erik realised that was precisely what she thought he’d done. Were people risking their lives to cross the ocean into hostile territory? Why?

  “I came from up north, but I’m not the only one. The woods seem safe, so I’ve gone off road when close to a town. There’s a kid and his mother further north, living in tents in the woods. Are you attempting to rescue those left behind?” Erik asked.

  He didn’t think they were as he would’ve seen a helicopter or something if they did. Still, maybe him telling them that there were a few survivors even now might change things.

  Just then, a scream sounded from the area where they took his bike. A soldier was on the ground, crawling backwards along the ground and away from the bike.

  “Private Vik, what the hell?” the General screamed at the panicked man.

  “The-the box, sir!” he tried, pointing towards Erik’s bike.

  “About that…” Erik said a bit shyly.

  “What about the box, Private?” the general said, a bit calmer now.

  She was looking at the two other pale-faced officers standing stiffly next to the bike, gawking into the black box wildly taped to the front of the bike.

  “It’s… it’s…”

  A straightforward answer didn’t come.

  “What’s in the box?” she asked the other two, who couldn’t even look away, much less respond to their General.

  Mathisen stopped her advance, turning to Erik and grabbing him by the collar of his stolen shirt.

  “What. Is in. The box?” she asked with a deeply terrifying grimace.

  Her strength was really something and yet Erik didn’t find himself as frightened as he thought he would. He’d never been faced with any kind of real scrutiny from an authoritative figure, but just that one alcohol breath test several years ago caused his entire body to tense up with nerves. He was only moderately sure that she wouldn’t cause him harm instead of just walking over there herself, but then again, he didn’t know this woman at all.

  Her grip relented soon after as the soldier on the ground finally shouted what was, in fact, in the box.

  “It’s a Hellbeast!”

  The two soldiers looked up at Mathisen as she rushed over to look for herself. Her eyes glazed over when she saw the decapitated head of one of the beasts they had fought for months, whose kill counts numbered hundreds of thousands by now, versus their own zero.

  The general looked at the rising number of soldiers and other military personnel around, all eager to see the sight. Erik saw her thoughtful expression and knew what she was thinking.

  They could be killed.

  It was the very thought he wanted to inspire by bringing the head along. Carving its head off with that knife had been quite the work, though. It was by far the most gruesome thing Erik had ever done to something that was, or used to be, alive. Would it be worth it, though?

  What the head itself couldn’t communicate was that there was nothing they could do about it. Other than helping Erik reach Jessie in the hopes of getting the Witch to join him, they couldn’t do anything against the threat at all.

  Erik and Jessie had agreed to explore their new powers together, though, not fight off an army of magical beasts. He’d understand if she said no. It would put their adventures on hold, but not disrupt their plans, he hoped.

  “Mr Fried. Where did you get this Hellbeast head?” the general asked in a deep and commanding tone. Several of the other soldiers grimaced.

  Erik knew that was the moment his future would be decided. Would this General Mathisen capture him and deliver him to the government? Would she not believe him at all? He didn’t know her and she didn’t know him. As it stood, she was a wildcard that he couldn’t even begin to guess how would react.

  “I killed it,” he said.

  Bridgefort grew silent.

  “You killed a Hellbeast? You expect me to believe that? The whole world is fighting these things and we have yet to confirm a single kill.”

  The general’s words grew angrier and angrier, but when she was done, her face changed to a more regretful one. A small glimmer of hope, maybe?

  “I’ve killed two, but I couldn’t fit the second one in there. I didn’t want to steal another car as that would make the woods much more difficult to traverse,” Erik explained truthfully.

  He decided to at least tell the military what they needed to hear. Right now that was the fact that this war could be won. He figured he would have to tell them about magic and that it was the only thing capable of killing these beasts. He needed their help, after all. And the world needed him.

  “The evidence is right there, isn’t it?” Erik said when no one else seemed to speak up. “I don’t think anyone else has claimed a kill, so why would I do so if I couldn’t? I have the evidence, but I’m fully expecting to have to kill some more with you watching before you’d believe me.”

  “You can kill more of them?” she asked.

  Something in her voice had changed, but it was just the tiniest amount. Her stance told much more. It was the slightest tilt of her head as if she looked at Erik in wonderment rather than suspicion. She lowered her left shoulder, and her left hand fidgeted while she clenched the other into a fist.

  By then, everyone had gathered in the vicinity and were talking and whispering amongst themselves. The susurrus grew loud around Erik and his challenger in the blink of an eye.

  “I can,” he said. “I will. But it isn’t free. I need you and you need me. I can’t teach you to kill them, just so you know.”

  “In that case… we will speak somewhere more comfortable,” she said, looking around at the eager soldiers. “Colonel Ashleigh, get Major Svensson and meet me and Mr Fried in Command in fifteen minutes.”

  Colonel Ashleigh was a woman around Erik’s age with pretty, straight blonde hair even under the cap of her uniform. Ashleigh saluted the general and jogged away. The general then led Erik towards the largest temporary building in the camp and gestured for him to enter.

  “Mr Fried, I want you to be completely honest with me right now,” she said, sitting down behind a desk covered in paperwork, printed pictures of Hellbeasts and maps of the surrounding region.

  She gestured to Erik to sit on the opposite side on a much less comfortable chair. He did so.

  “I will be,” was all he said.

  “Did you kill one or more beasts on your way here?”

  “I did.”

  “You can do it again?”

  “I can,” he confirmed.

  “That’s all I need to know for now. I’m giving you ten minutes to change your answers before the colonel and the major get here. If you do, I will let you leave here without any trouble. If you insist on staying on this path after these ten minutes… you are, from then on, neck deep in shit if you can’t deliver on your words.”

  “And if I do deliver?” Erik asked, wondering if he should take the chance to be let through and go on his merry, lonesome way.

  The general answered slowly, succinctly, and to the point. She wasn’t going to waste words, not when the fate of the world was at stake. “If you can prove the truth of your words… then I will use every gram of influence I have under the Emergency Council to help you however you wish.”

  Her words, which would’ve seemed positive in writing, were instead covered in bitter venom. It was a promise for all intents and purposes, but it was a promise that edged closer to another threat of what she would do if he didn’t come through or change his mind. Erik could respect that.

  “I can’t have the military or the public in my way. I think you’ll recognise why I say that eventually. If I do this, will you still offer your help without those resources?”

  “Mr. Fried,” she answered resolutely. “If you can somehow convince me that this war can be won without the human race ending up extinct in the process, I will personally hand you my stars. Don’t mistake my words for sentiment, Mr. Fried. My stars can be leveraged for most anything you could imagine and my own resources further still.”

  Somehow the general’s presence increased threefold as she loomed on the other side of the desk. Despite this, Erik did something he couldn’t remember doing ever since leaving Afterlife. He smiled sincerely.

  “You’re my kind of gal,” Erik grinned at the much older general. “With your help, we might be able to save the world.”