Zombie Eyes

deeper, deeper and deeper, as his mind crouched in a vain attempt to hide from the pain.

It was killing him.

It was everywhere ... around and inside him.

It held him as if he were a child, plucking him from one fire to place him in another.

It sent rivers of electric shock through his nerves.

Swimming in pain.

No lack of pain.

No lack...

'You will come to accept me as your god, Stroud,' the ancient demon spoke.

Esruad now seemed powerless and far away, blocked.

And Stroud realized now that he was not swimming, but his mind was ... swimming away from the wizard from 793 b.c.

As a backdrop to his pain he heard the evil laughter of Ubbrroxx. He heard explosions and the mad rattle of bones. He imagined lightning bolts exploding all around him, and he wondered if it was bombs and explosives coming from above; wondered if he'd be buried here with the ancient bone pile created by the creature of creatures for all eternity.

Stroud fought for consciousness and for breath. He called on help from his grandfather, who seemed to have abandoned him as well, fearful of watching his end. Would it all come to this, an unheralded death in the bowels of a haunted, cursed ship that had sailed from out of the past of his ancestors?

'Stroooooud, Stroud.' It was Esruad, and Stroud now realized that Esruad held him in his arms, in the protective shield around them both now. Just beyond them, timbers were bursting and bones cascading, but Stroud could not see this. Esruad communicated it through a strange telepathy.

'We have only one chance, Stroud,' the ancient wizard told him. 'You are badly hurt, and if you do not join with me, you will die.'

'Join with you?' Stroud wasn't sure what that meant. 'In the skull? Trapped there to wait for another thousand years, for another chance at Ubbrroxx?'

'No, if you join with me, I will live in the receptacle of your body. It may be our only chance.'

'To join?'

'Are you willing?'

Stroud knew he had little choice. He was blind now and was losing feeling in all of his extremities. He'd die anyway. Esruad was offering him life for life. 'Yes, we join.'

'The choice is made...'

Stroud felt bitterly frustrated, unable to see. But he felt the intense fire that suddenly engulfed him, and yet it was not a burning fire. It was a fire of ice and it spread through his body, combating the numbness and deadness and poison inflicted by the serpent which had been just another extension of Ubbrroxx.

'Damn you, Esruad!' Stroud heard the angry roar of Ubbrroxx as if it, too, were inside him and all around him.

Stroud felt a calm filtering through him with the coolness of Esruad's being. He felt a crystal-like strength returning to his limbs and body. He found his blinded eyes opening to a cool, clear vision, and he felt the strength of his ancestors as they insinuated themselves in his every nerve and fiber. At his feet lay the crystal skull facedown, looking like a useless hulk of ice, and no sign of Esruad, for he was inside Stroud now ... in his head, his heart, his muscle. His brain was crowded with the souls of those who'd abandoned the crystal skull with Esruad, and it caused a jumble of confusion, noise, voices and sounds unfamiliar to Stroud. He was shaken and fearful of his own body now. For the first time in his life, he'd have settled gladly for the steel plate in his head. He imagined the lunatic, the schizophrenic he would soon become with so many spirits turned loose on his mind.

'I hope you know what we're doing, Esruad,' he said to himself, for he, now, was Esruad in the flesh and Esruad was him.

'We can overcome this evil now, Stroud, as never before.'

'Destroy it?'

'Completely.'

'How?'

'Take up the empty receptacle and keep it with us.'

Stroud bent to lift the crystal skull and return it to his shoulder pouch.

'Talking to yourself down in this hole, too, Stroud!' Sam Leonard's voice came as a shock, making Stroud think it was coming from the skull, before he wheeled to face Dr. Leonard. The other man had come out of the shadows.

'Where are the others? Why've you come alone?'

'Sorry, Stroud ... I tried to save them ... but ... but--'

'Kendra?'

'Taken off by the fiends!'

'Wiz?'

'Dead ... dead, Stroud! I knew we shouldn't've tried to follow you. I knew it was wrong!'

'Get hold of yourself, Dr. Leonard.' It was Esruad talking while Stroud was grieving for Kendra.

'You say they made off with her? That Kendra was alive when you last saw her?' Stroud pressed for details. He then searched on his person for the communicator and tried desperately to reach her.

Her voice came over in screams. She was being tortured.

'We've got to help her.'

Inside his head Stroud heard Esruad tell him it was a trap. But Stroud didn't care what it was. He couldn't think of anything beyond helping Kendra out of her pain.

'We've got to go on! This way!' said Stroud sternly, pointing the way. But it was Esruad who was speaking and pointing through Stroud. Stroud wanted to race back in the direction from which Leonard had come.

'My way,' Esruad was saying. 'If I know Ubbrroxx, the woman will be ahead. It will use your woman to get to you. It knows this is your weakness. Don't allow it, Stroud.'

Leonard was looking at him strangely, listening to his conversation with himself.

Finally, Stroud said, 'We go this way, straight ahead.'

'But Dr. Cline is behind us,' said Leonard.

'The only way to help her now is to destroy Ubbrroxx.'

'You're not going to help her? Listen to those screams! How can you stand it?' shouted Sam Leonard.

'Where're your weapons, Dr. Leonard?'

'She is calling for our help.'

'Your weapons?'

'Lost, dammit! I was lucky to escape with my life!'

'All right ... stay close behind, and take this.' Stroud gave him his dart gun.

'What do you propose to use?'

'Magic.'

'Good ... most comforting, Stroud.'

Stroud also hefted what was left of the gas in his canister.

Stroud no longer breathed from the spent oxygen tank, and neither did Leonard. It was likely only a matter of time before Leonard succumbed to the contaminated air. But Esruad's magic kept Stroud protected, so far. With Leonard following, Stroud continued ahead while in his head Esruad talked to others there about strategy. There, seemed to be some whispering discord over Leonard. Something about his being untrustworthy. Stroud was being given a signal to ditch the poor man. Stroud fought the suggestion.

'It will use Leonard and the others against you, Stroud. You must be strong and vigilant.'

Stroud assured Esruad that with their new-found strength and disguise, that he would be stronger.

Kendra and Dr. Wisnewski had reached the mouth of the cavern where the bow of the ship stared back at them. Strangely, they had encountered no further setbacks or attacks. It was as if the creature was satisfied with Stroud's life, and that theirs were unnecessary now to its design.

She tried again to raise Stroud but all she got for her trouble was static.