Chen opened his mouth to start hammering Raptor with questions, but remembered that he wasn’t authorized to answer. Instead he stared hungrily at the alien landscape below him, memorizing everything he could so that when the time came to ask questions, he’d be ready.
Once past the canyon, they approached what Chen had been looking for all along—a city. The buildings were dome-shaped and many of them stretched so far to the sky that their tops were lost in the clouds. They were built of the same strange light as the disks and the walkways in the canyon.
There were many more creatures now, and as Raptor and Chen passed through toward the heart of the city, they stopped what they were doing to look. Chen began to feel uncomfortable, as though he’d been thrust under a great spotlight, but remembered that he was the first human to cross over into their dimension. It was only natural they’d be curious.
At last they arrived in front of a magnificent palace. The light that composed the many turrets and spires was golden instead of white, and Chen marveled at the pure beauty of it.
Raptor jumped down from his light disk and offered a steadying hand to Chen.
“We’ve arrived,” Raptor said. “I’ve no doubt you have even more questions now than before.”
“Quite a few,” Chen said, drinking in the shimmering archway that led into the palace. He noticed that the creatures around the palace were carrying long, serrated spears and wore helmets and armor.
“Well, you’ll soon have all your answers,” Raptor said, but without a smile and without looking Chen in the eye. “This way, please.”
They entered the palace over a shimmering drawbridge and passed into a cavernous main hall. At the far end of the hall sat seven of the creatures behind a table of golden light, seated on high-backed glowing chairs. The left and right walls were lined with more armed creatures standing at attention.
Raptor and Chen approached the creature at the center spot of the table.
“Professor Chen,” Raptor said as an introduction, bowing his head. He then stepped backward and off to the side.
The creature was slightly larger than Raptor, and had none of the good humor of Raptor’s face. He eyed Chen beadily, and had an air of impatience about him.
Several seconds passed. Chen was unsure who was supposed to speak first. He looked over at Raptor, but Raptor’s eyes were downcast.
“If you have questions,” the head creature grunted finally, “ask them now.”
“Oh,” Chen replied. “Yes. Uh, where am I?”
The head creature frowned at him. “If you have specific questions, ask them now,” he said.
“My apologies.” Chen thought it over. “What dimension is this?”
“We refer to it as Dimension 6971,” the creature said.
I did it, Chen thought. I really did it. I crossed over to another dimension.
“And what species are you?”
“We are known as the Xor,” the creature replied.
“Fascinating,” Chen said. “Xor. And this city? What is this city called?”
The head creature finally smiled, revealing even longer, sharper teeth than Raptor’s. He made a chuckling sound, as did the rest of the creatures seated at the table.
“Detroit,” the head creature said simply.
Professor Chen felt himself smile. “But that’s extraordinary! We have a Detroit where I come from! Tell me more about this Detroit.”
“It’s a city in Michigan,” the head creature said. “Known primarily for the auto industry and a sub-par football team.”
The surrounding creatures all made the chuckling sound again.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Professor Chen said.
“The only reason you’re standing here in our presence, Professor Chen,” the head creature said, “is because we owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“Gratitude?”
“Indeed. Your interdimensional device didn’t send you anywhere. You’re still on Earth,” the creature said.
Chen felt his heart drop into his stomach and all the blood drain from his face.
“But it did open an interdimensional rift that allowed the Xor—all four billion of us—to travel to Earth,” the creature said. “Dimension 6971.”
“That’s—” Professor Chen began thickly. He cleared his throat. “That’s not possible. This planet looks nothing like Earth.”
“This is not our first invasion,” the head creature said. “We conquer and convert efficiently.”
Professor Chen found himself speechless.
“All out of questions?” the head creature taunted. “Excellent. Now we come to the matter of what to do with you.”
“Do with me?” Chen asked in a tight voice not at all like his own.
“Yes,” the head creature said. “My thought was to set you to work under the lash down in Terror Chasm. You’d be reunited with your former assistants. Joseph, Nina, and Jodi are excellent slaves.”
Chen fought a wave of nausea as he thought back to his trip over the canyon, to the pinkish-white creatures down at the bottom, and realized what they must be.
“But as I said, the Xor owe you a debt, and Terror Chasm is a fate worse than death,” the creature continued. “So I’ve decided to introduce you to my family.”
“Your family?” Chen asked.
“Oh yes,” the creature said. His eyes narrowed and he bared all of his teeth in a sick parody of a grin. “I have many young that need to be fed. And you should make a tasty snack.”
V.
MAYBE GOD LEFT US OUT OF THE PLANS HE MADE
Kenny was trying to pay attention to what the doctor was saying, but the doctor had a small scar on his chin shaped like a backwards comma, and Kenny was fixated on it. He knew it was an odd thing, a bizarre thing to focus on, but it was an odd time, a bizarre time, and not a whole lot made sense any more.
They were standing outside the hospital room. It was late, and only every third light in the hallway was lit. The shadows made Kenny feel uncomfortable.
“It could be any time now,” the doctor was saying in his low, concerned, sad doctor voice. Kenny knew what the doctor was trying to do, but his mother was only one patient. The doctor was probably thinking about his other patients, the ones he could save and make well, and Kenny’s mother was not among them.
“Okay,” Kenny heard himself say. It wasn’t okay, but that didn’t seem to matter now.
The doctor nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said, and went back about his doctor business.
Kenny checked his phone. It seemed as good a way as any to delay facing what he was about to face. There was a new email from McConnell Funeral Home, confirming his choice of coffin and floral arrangements. The undertaker had spoken to him in a low, concerned, sad undertaker voice. So many people were speaking to him that way now. Almost like they were afraid his mother would overhear that she was dying.
Another new email from Eternity Monuments showed his purchase of his mother’s headstone and wanted verification of the details. He scrolled down.
MAUREEN GRADY
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER
BORN 9/9/1955
DIED X/X/XXXX
So Eternity Monuments was waiting to see when she was going to die. That was the only information they needed and then they could go ahead and chisel away. That’s all she was to them. Just a date on a stone. As least the sales guy at Eternity Monuments spoke in a normal voice. He’d been positively chipper.
He tucked his phone back in his pocket. There was only so long he could put this off.
Kenny peered into the room. The only light on was the one above his mother’s bed. A bunch of machines beeped and sighed and hummed softly, filling her with things and drawing things out of her, like she was a pool that needed draining.
Kenny crossed to the far side of the bed where an empty chair waited. He sat and was able to see his mother up close for the first time since the curable crossed over to the terminal. The skin on her face sagged under her eyes a
nd over her cheeks and under her chin, as though her skull had shrunk and everything on the outside of it was loose. There were small blue veins crisscrossing her eyelids. A clear tube was taped to her lips, filling her struggling lungs every few seconds.
He thought about the cancer inside her, consuming her a small piece at a time. The cancer was probably thrilled that her body was no longer fighting back. It made things easier.
Kenny took his mother’s hand in his. It was smooth and soft, but cold, and sat limply in his grip. In his mind’s eye, he saw her as she had been when he was small, so full of light, so ready to laugh at the silliest things, so unlined and without burdens or cares. He superimposed that mother over this one, and smiled a small, sad smile.
“Hi Mom,” he said in a choked voice. “I know you can’t hear me, but I wanted you to know I was here.”
Somewhere, in the deepest recesses of Maureen’s mind, something stirred. It was swimming under fathoms of drugs and painkillers, an ocean that sat between her and consciousness. But it was there.
And it heard something.
“Hi Mom.” It was Kenny. Her baby boy. Her beloved Kenny. “I know you can’t hear me, but I wanted you to know I was here.”
Kenny! she cried. Kenny! Yes, I hear you! I can hear you!
It was the first time in his entire life he’d had trouble talking to his mother. He simply didn’t know what to say. What did you say to the woman who had known you since the moment you’d taken your first breath when you knew she was shortly to take her last?
An old man in a hospital gown shuffled past the door and looked inside. He seemed to understand everything with a glance, and in a sweetly tender voice said, “Try remembering the good times.” He nodded and moved along.
Kenny smiled. There were plenty of good times to remember, and maybe that was the best way to spend whatever time remained.
“How about Christmas at Clarity Lake?”
Maureen’s consciousness twitched and squirmed, desperate to push through the unyielding depths that kept her from her son.
Yes! she said. You were five. We stayed at the cabin. Your Auntie Joan drove up early Christmas Eve to hide your presents, did you know that? And you told your father and me that Santa would probably leave a lot of ash in the fireplace, so after you went to bed, your father knocked around in the chimney with a poker to make sure the ash would be there. He got a face full of soot! He was so mad!
“I had so much fun that week,” Kenny said thoughtfully, and he squeezed his mother’s unresponsive hand without thinking about it. “I was so happy. We were so happy.”
He shifted in the chair, maintaining his hold on her unresponsive hand.
“And then there was the time,” he said, grinning, pink creeping out of his collar and coloring his cheeks, “that you caught me being . . . intimate with Jenny Carson after I sneaked her into my bedroom.” He shook his head, unable to believe he was bringing this up with his mother, despite the fact that she couldn’t hear him.
But she heard him clearly.
Oh yes, she said. Oh yes. How could I forget that? I had to punish you, but here’s something I never told you—my own mother caught me and your father being . . . intimate . . . after I snuck him into my bedroom when I was the same age you were.
As deep down as she was, she felt a sharp pang of regret.
I should have shared that with you. Why did I never share that with you? I’d give anything to be able to tell you that right now.
“I remember you didn’t let me talk to Jenny for a month.” Kenny laughed. “Pretty brutal punishment.”
You think you were punished? she said. You should have been on the receiving end of one of your grandmother’s cupped hands to the ear. I was cross-eyed for a month.
Kenny’s eyes became thoughtful, unfocused, as though he was looking at a hole in time and space and seeing his memories play out on a movie screen.
“Your 30th wedding anniversary party . . .” he said, and the tears that he’d fought so hard against began to well.
Maureen could hear the catch in her son’s throat and she fought, thrashed, strained with all her might to rise through the haze that kept her from waking, but it would not yield.
She settled for sharing the memory with Kenny. That was the most magical evening I’ve ever had in my entire life, she said. And that’s saying something. When they played our wedding song and your father took me out on the dance floor, and then you came out and danced with your sister . . . it was a perfect moment. A shining, perfect moment.
She felt another sharp pang.
And then we lost them both. In one night, we lost them both. And then it was just you and me.
Kenny had been lost in the same thoughts as his mother, though he had no way of knowing it, and said quietly, “And then it was just you and me.”
The tears tracked down his face and fell on the hospital blanket. So many strange, funny, long-forgotten memories were coming back to him, unbidden, and he didn’t know what to do with any of them.
“Then, of course, there was my driver’s test . . .” he said.
You wanted me to go with you because you were afraid your father would make you too nervous, Maureen recalled fondly. You were probably right.
“I was so bad,” Kenny chuckled. “I screwed everything up so bad. The three-point turn. The parallel parking. To this day I still can’t figure out why that woman passed me.”
I know exactly why she passed you, Maureen said. She thought you were cute. I bet you could have gotten a date out of it as well. But you’ve never appreciated how good-looking you are and how many dates you could have had.
“Do you remember Tony Cerino?” he asked his mother out of nowhere.
Your best friend when we lived on Hillswood Road? Of course I remember Tony.
“He thought you were hot,” Kenny said, and coughed out a watery laugh through his tears. “When we were twelve. He thought you were hot.”
What, only when you two were twelve? Was I suddenly not hot when Tony turned thirteen?
“I kicked his ass,” Kenny said. “Heh. I told him to shut his damn mouth about my mother.”
That must have been the night you came home with your knuckles all bruised and you didn’t want to talk about it.
“Tony Cerino,” Kenny said, shaking his head. “Shit.”
Kenny kept his one-sided conversation going well into the small hours of the morning. He would be crying bitter tears one moment and laughing heartily the next as he regaled his mother with memories in which she figured prominently and with some that he’d kept closely guarded secrets until the moment he spoke them.
It was just as dawn began creeping over the horizon, though she had no way of knowing what time it was, that Maureen sensed a change. She found that she could suddenly hear things she hadn’t before. She could hear Kenny’s breathing. She could hear his heart beating, could hear his tears as they dropped onto the bed. Icy fear gripped her.
What’s happening?
Whatever she was, wherever she was, she felt something tug at her, pull her, moving her down, away, into the nothingness below.
NOOOOOOOOOO! she shrieked, and she resisted, she squirmed, she fought for all she was worth. She was a fish in a net, frantically trying to escape the eager fisherman and return to the cool, clear water. With a mighty effort she managed to slip free, but she knew that she’d be pulled back down again, and this time she wouldn’t be able to resist.
No, you don’t understand, I can’t leave him, she jabbered. I can’t leave him, he needs me, he’s my beautiful baby boy and he needs me, I’ll never hear his voice again, I’ll never be near him again, please, PLEASE!
She found herself once again under that immense, dark barrier. With every ounce of strength left, with every atom, every molecule, she pushed herself up through it. As she rose up, up, up she felt all the pain of her ravaged body come crashing back in. She was decaying, she was rotting from the inside, and she was so desperately weak. But if she w
as leaving forever, she could at least do this one last thing . . .
Kenny wept. He didn’t think there could possibly be any more tears, but there were, an endless supply, and the pain in his heart came up like slag.
Then his mother squeezed his hand.
He looked up at her, wide-eyed. “Mom?” he cried. “Mom? Can you hear me? Mom, I love you. I love you, Mom. I love you.”
I love you too, she said. She was spiraling back down, back below the pain of consciousness, back under the cloud of medications, and the world began to grow dim around the edges.
She reached the place she’d been before, where she’d last heard Kenny’s voice, and once again felt that irresistible pull, dragging her down into darkness, into oblivion, into the eternity of nothingness. This time she did not resist. And it was bliss.
I love you too was her last thought before she ceased to be.
VI.
DEFENDING THE WALL
Thrace ran as fast as his legs would carry him. His feet kicked up water and mud from the many puddles that dotted his path, and his breath heaved in and out of his lungs as he chanced quick, terrified looks over his shoulder. He could see figures emerging from the mist crawling off the lake. They were coming.
He finally reached the drawbridge and dashed over it, skidding to a halt just inside the archway that led to the castle beyond. Putting both hands on the iron bars of the nearby crank, he turned it with all his might, and the iron gate that protected the castle’s main entrance came down slowly, its bottom teeth finally coming to rest in the holes below it.
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