by Hamill, Ike
Robby ignored the pain and pulled from Brad’s grip. He drove his leg backwards, catching Gordie in the nose and making the dog release his jaws. Robby climbed the stairs.
“Jim, it’s not safe here,” Robby said.
Corinna put out her hand, like she was going to stop Robby from moving past her. Robby brushed right by her. Her attempt to stop him didn’t have any heart behind it.
Gordie barked.
That sound pulled Robby more than any other. For a moment, he wavered.
“Brandon tricked me,” Jim said.
Robby nodded and started climbing again. It all made perfect sense. For years, Robby had wondered why Jim had gotten up in the middle of the night and climbed the stairs to walk out into the snow. Jim was his best friend, and Robby had always tried to protect him. They had been sleeping side by side with Jim’s older brother Brandon, and Jim had gotten up and left. Robby could have stopped him if he had just paid closer attention. He should have stopped him. He should have been paying perfect attention based on all the crazy things that had happened that day.
“I’m sorry, Jim,” Robby whispered.
There was one detail that could let Robby off the hook and made it all okay—it wasn’t his fault. Brandon had somehow tricked Jim into going outside that night. Brandon never liked Jim or Robby and he had used the disaster to get rid of his little brother once and for all.
Robby was overjoyed by this new version of the past. The terrible guilt that had been suppressed for so long was finally exhumed and set free. Jim was here and Robby could protect him forever.
“My brother is a dick,” Jim said.
Robby laughed and nodded. Robby always knew that Jim and Brandon shared a bond that would never be broken. They were brothers. Even as an only child, Robby could understand what that meant. Brothers weren’t always close, but they would always have that bond, and Jim would always idolize Brandon to some extent. Because of that, it touched Robby when Jim was strong enough to admit that his brother wasn’t always the nicest person in the world.
“Jesus,” Brad whispered from below. “So fast.”
Robby barely heard him. He was reaching forward to take Jim’s hand. He had only held Jim’s hand once—that was when they went on the first grade field trip down to the pier and they had to stick with their buddy. Still, it seemed perfectly natural. Jim was forgiving him and bringing Robby back into the fold.
“I want you to meet my friend,” Jim said.
Robby nodded. He would do anything for Jim.
CHAPTER 49: BOSTON
“WE HAVE TO HELP them see,” Mike said. “You understand.”
Carrie turned towards the source of the light. She absolutely did not understand why there would be so much blood on the floor. The Origin had asked her to be his eyes. She was witnessing this for him. She had no desire at all to see what the light revealed.
Mike was standing over Yurt.
The Origin was there to offer them a better path—that’s what he had told her. Almost everyone understood and chose that better path. Some—very few—had decided that walking any path at all was too much pain. Put in perspective, some small minority saw the truth about their own lives and decided that continuing on would be too much effort for no reward. Those people may have chosen death over The Origin’s path. But it had been their own choice, and they had taken their own lives in their hands.
Nobody had been intentionally hurt for The Origin’s cause.
Nobody, until now—until Yurt.
His body was the source of the blood.
Mike had cut a big hole in Yurt’s abdomen and pulled out wet, sloppy hunks of organs and released buckets of blood. The prize in Mike’s hand came from Yurt’s head. Mike held the man’s eyes.
“We have to help them see,” Mike said again.
He was pleading with Carrie to understand, but she didn’t see understanding or even comprehension on Mike’s face. Mike was standing tall, holding his flashlight and Yurts eyes while tears streamed down Mike’s face.
There was a noise from above.
Carrie turned.
A set of legs began to descend. The woman paused on the stairs and called.
“John? Are you down there?”
She came down a few more steps. Carrie barely saw her shape against the dim light coming from above. The woman didn’t appear to see Carrie.
“John?”
There was another shape behind the woman. Carrie recognized Abe as he swung from above. Whatever he held in his hands—it looked like a softball bat—rang like a chime when it connected with the woman’s head.
She tried to call for John again as she slipped and then tumbled down the stairs. Carrie had no idea how she had managed to pronounce the word at all. The back of the woman’s skull was completely caved in. Her blood began to mix with Yurt’s as the woman twitched. The beam of Mike’s flashlight landed on her face as the light drained from her eyes.
“We have to help them see,” Abe said as he descended.
Carrie realized that she was standing in the puddle.
She put her hand to her belly, over the baby inside of her.
Abe reached down with greedy fingers that tried to pull the woman’s eyes from their sockets. Carrie was going to be sick and she couldn’t do it in front of Abe and Mike. They would know.
…He’s going to have them do the same thing to me…
Carrie understood the voice inside her. It wasn’t the baby. The voice was coming from the part of her that would protect the baby no matter what happened. Some animals could turn their bodies against their own pregnancy if the mother’s life was at risk. Carrie had read about caribou in Alaska that would miscarry if they didn’t get the right nutrients in their diet. She didn’t have that mechanism. She would protect her pregnancy with her last breath if need be.
She tried to calmly move around Abe to get to the stairs.
He stopped his eyeball-digging and watched her move as Mike’s light tracked her through the dark. They were waiting for instructions. She had to move fast, but not so fast that they grabbed her out of suspicion.
The Origin was busy—that’s why she had to be his eyes. If he wasn’t, they would have grabbed her already.
She started to climb the stairs.
Abe released his handful of the woman’s hair. He looked down at his hands, covered in blood and brains, and then up at Carrie.
“I understand that Terry needs help,” Carrie said. The idea had popped into her head from nowhere.
Abe blinked at her as he tried to understand if it was true. They heard a sound from upstairs—footsteps, and maybe something being dragged. Carrie rushed up the stairs, away from Abe and Mike.
After being in the basement, Carrie found the gloomy living room almost bright and cheery. Terry was pulling an older man across the floor by his arm. A pole was stuck between the man’s ribs. The man had a grip on a chair leg. Together, the man and the chair were too much for Terry to pull.
“It’s stuck,” Terry said. “Help me get it unstuck.”
Carrie didn’t slow. The man was going to die from his wounds and there was nothing that Carrie could do to stop it. Still, she felt his pain, almost like it was happening to her, as she stepped around Terry and over the man.
“Hey,” Terry said.
Carrie picked up even more speed. The door was almost within reach when Terry figured out what Carrie intended to do.
“Hey!” Terry yelled.
Carrie threw open the door and ran.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
The keys weren’t in the truck. They were probably back in Terry’s pocket.
Carrie ran up the street and hooked a left. She saw an alley that ran between rows of houses and she took that. The Origin seemed to know everything, but that couldn’t be the case. If he were omniscient, he would have known that Carrie was going to betray him. There had to be a limit to what he could see.
She took a left and let herself through a gate to run to the open
back door of a house. In the kitchen, she got lucky when she found the bowl of keys.
Back out on the street, none of the cars lit up when she clicked the button to unlock the car doors. All the batteries would be dead. Living in a community, she had grown soft. The citizens of Northam had cleared out all the dead vehicles and charged up the ones that were left. It was easy to find a ride there.
She couldn’t waste time trying to get transportation. The others would be after her.
Carrie threw the keys down and ran.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
In an old neighborhood with tight streets and looming buildings, Carrie finally allowed herself to rest. It had been twenty minutes since she last heard Terry’s truck zooming down a nearby street. For the moment, they had lost her trail.
Carrie sat on the old floorboards of a porch and leaned against the half-wall. Every now and then, she peeked over her shoulder to see if anyone was coming down Moore Street.
…They don’t know where we are…
Carrie frowned at the voice inside of herself. It didn’t matter what they knew now. Once The Origin was free to give her his full attention, he would easily find her. She didn’t know how, but she knew it was true.
…He sees anything he wills…
“Tell me something useful, or shut the fuck up,” Carrie whispered to herself.
…The only place he won’t look for you is where he’s from…
The idea challenged Carrie’s understanding of the situation.
“How would I know that?” Carrie whispered. “Why would I think that?”
It didn’t matter. The idea seemed too perfect to be anything but true. The Origin’s knowledge of the world was constantly expanding. It was expanding because the man was always colonizing the brains of new people. He was promising them exactly what they wanted and then using them like puppets to get them to enact his will. They were all serving his purpose while they believed that they were allowing themselves to be completely selfish.
Because his knowledge was always increasing at the boundaries, the safest place for her to hide was at the place where his journey had begun.
There was no way to know if the idea was really true, but Carrie believed it. She believed it completely.
After one more peek, she stood up.
She had a long journey west ahead of her.
CHAPTER 50: NEW YORK CITY
“LIAM?” CORINNA WHISPERED.
THE little boy only had eyes for Robby. He didn’t even glance at her when she said his name.
“Brandon tricked me,” Liam said to Robby.
An emptiness washed through Corinna. She suddenly saw all the other discrepancies between the little boy that she had protected for years and this fake Liam. His hair was swept in the wrong direction. His little fingers always reached up and pushed his hair to his left. His shoulders were dropped in a weird way and his feet were turned in when Liam always stood with his toes slightly out to the sides.
“I’m sorry, Jim,” Robby whispered.
This wasn’t Liam. Maybe her boy had an identical twin and this was him. Robby started to climb the stairs.
“My brother is a dick,” fake Liam said.
Robby laughed. He was reaching for fake Liam’s hand.
Fake Liam started to say something else. Corinna didn’t hear it. The other guy, Brad, had grabbed her arm and was pulling her down the stairs.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
“Holy shit,” Brad said as soon as they had pushed through the door. “I don’t know what happened. That was so fast.”
“That wasn’t Liam,” she said.
Brad nodded. “That’s right, and it wasn’t Robby anymore either. They’re both gone. I had no idea that it could happen so fast. It was like he was immediately entranced.”
They both turned at a sound from the other side of the door. It was a whimpering dog. Corinna reached forward with the key, but Brad held her hand back.
“It could be a trick,” Brad said.
“It’s a dog,” Corinna said, pulling away from him.
She was wrong. It was two dogs. Prince and Gordie pushed through the gap as soon as the door was open wide enough. Corinna saw Robby disappearing through the doorway at the top of the stairs as the door swung shut again.
“He must still be in there somewhere,” Corinna said. She immediately started thinking of all of Liam’s favorite hiding places. She could sneak in another entrance and begin the search. She would have to be careful. She didn’t want to risk running into the fake Liam or the man who had been talking to him in the dark.
“No,” Brad said. “You have to trust me—he’s gone.”
Corinna shook her head. She would never accept that.
“But there may be a way to get him back. We may be able to get all of them back,” Brad said quickly.
Corinna narrowed her eyes and studied him. She had experience with people who would say whatever she needed to hear in order to get her to do things. She wasn’t going to fall for any tricks.
“It’s like we talked about a few minutes ago,” Brad said. “If we can get back to that man’s origin, then maybe we can find out a way to reverse what he’s done.”
“Where?” she asked.
“Upstate."
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Corinna led them back to the Polaris that Robby had abandoned. It ran, but it moved slowly. One of the tires was completely deflated. The rubber flapped as it ground between the rim and the pavement. Prince wouldn’t get in the back seat with Gordie. He ran alongside at their slow pace.
“We need something better,” Brad said.
“North one block,” Corinna said. “I know a minivan.”
“Does it run?”
“Why would I tell you about a minivan that doesn’t run?”
They went north.
Corinna walked up to the van while Brad climbed on top of a taxi. There were cars littering the one-way road and he wanted to see if it was clear enough to keep heading that direction. According to the map that Robby had given Corinna, they would do best to head up to Harlem. She hadn’t left the island in a long time and had no reason to doubt the markings on the map.
Brad climbed down when he heard the minivan start.
She was walking around the vehicle.
“You drive,” she called. “I’m terrible at it.”
Brad nodded and jogged towards the driver’s door. He put one hand on the roof and started to slide behind the wheel.
She whistled for Prince. The dog didn’t move. Both dogs were still over near the leaning Polaris, which was parked in the middle of the street.
Corinna whistled again.
“Come on, Prince.”
Gordie stayed put and Prince started to slowly stalk towards Corinna. The dog’s posture was all wrong. His shoulders were hunched and his tail was tucked underneath him. Brad thought that the dog was frightened of him. He hadn’t gotten close to Prince. It probably made sense. He had the idea of whistling to Gordie. Maybe once Gordie came, Prince would trust him too.
When he whistled, Gordie actually backed up a step.
Brad had one foot in the vehicle and the other down on the pavement. He jerked his foot off the street.
“The car!” he shouted as he jerked his foot up. The dogs were reacting to something about the car. Brad flashed back to when they had travelled from Maine to New York, and how they had been threatened by the killer liquid the whole way. Maybe the dogs sensed the liquid. Maybe it was under him right now.
“What are you…” Corinna started. Her eyes went wide as she backed up. Corinna sprinted from the side of the minivan. Brad did the only thing he could think to do. He put the van in gear and stomped on the accelerator.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
One of the rear tires bumped up over something. Brad imagined it was all over. Once the liquid swarmed, it was too quick to evade. He had seen a puddle eat an entire vehicle before. The process was fast and ruthless.
Behind
him, in the mirror, Corinna had drawn her sword and was actually walking forward. Brad wanted to shout back to her that it was too dangerous. A sword couldn’t do anything against a liquid that was infinitely stronger than acid.
He saw a dark shape on the pavement and he stood on the brake pedal reflexively. Corinna brought the sword down on the shape and then circled around it. She whistled to the dogs and they ran after her. The three of them arrived at the van at the same time.
Corinna wiped the blood from her sword as the dogs jumped into the back of the van.
“Get out of here,” Corinna said.
“Was that an alligator?” Brad asked.
“I don’t know. I think so, but it could have been a crocodile. Whatever it was, it must have been deformed because I’ve never seen a picture of anything exactly like it.”
“Coyote-things,” Brad said.
“Drive!” she said.
He nodded and started the van moving again. He had to squeeze between a police cruiser that was sideways and a mailbox.
“Robby talked about the coyote-things down south and then the giant cat. I wonder if that alligator was like those.”
They passed below the shadow of a huge building. Sunlight reflected off the glass face of its neighbor and left twisting patterns of light on the road. When something darted across the street in front of them, Brad slammed on the brakes.
It was too close for Brad to stop. The front tire of the vehicle clipped the lizard’s tail. Stretched out, the lizard must have been ten-feet long. When Brad rolled over its tail, the monster whipped around, doubling back on itself. Its snapping jaws hit the driver’s door and Brad flinched away.
“What are you doing? Go!” Corinna yelled.
Brad turned the wheel and slammed the gas. The van bucked as the back tire hit the lizard. The van swerved and slewed as Brad fought for control. The right side scraped down the length of a parked bus before Brad got it back under control. The noise spooked another one of the lizards. It darted out from a doorway and streaked across the street ahead of them.
