Out of This World

by Chris Wooding

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  About the Author

  Copyright

  “Anyone home?”

  Jack peered through the open door, down the unfamiliar hallway of his house. There were no paintings, no mirrors, no furniture there. Only neat white walls.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  The silence made him nervous. They were always waiting when he got home from school, and their cars were still in the driveway. He shouldered his backpack and stepped inside, leaving the summer heat behind. The chill of the air-conditioning raised goose bumps on his bare arms.

  “Hello?”

  No reply. He poked his head through a doorway into a crisply organized study, where Dad did whatever he did when he was working from home. Something to do with finance or business or stocks and shares. He’d tried to explain it once, but Jack had glazed over.

  He wasn’t there now.

  Jack retreated and looked through another door, expecting to find the living room. He found a dining room instead, with a long rectangular table and brand-new chairs. For a few moments he thought the house had somehow rearranged itself while he was out, but then he remembered. It was their last house that had the living room opposite the study. Or maybe it was the one before that? These rentals all looked the same, especially since his parents never decorated. And they moved around a lot.

  He crept up the hallway, listening. Maybe they were out back in the yard. Maybe they were taking a nap. Maybe they had headphones on, listening to music.

  None of that seemed likely. They both had uncannily good hearing, they never napped, and as far as he knew, they never listened to music, either.

  There was a muffled noise from the kitchen at the end of the hall, where the door stood open.

  “Mom?” he said quietly. Now ice was creeping up his spine. That wasn’t the sound of his mom cooking in the kitchen. It was the sound of someone trying not to be heard.

  Jack’s heart began to thump in his chest. His eyes were fixed on the doorway. Through it, he could see the kitchen counter and the windows beyond that looked out to the backyard.

  He should go into the kitchen, find out what that sound was. He should see if his parents were okay. He should be brave.

  Instead he turned on his heel and ran for the front door.

  He didn’t make it.

  From the dining room doorway, a figure lunged out, holding a small canister in one hand. There was a sharp hiss, and Jack felt a wet mist hit his face. Pepper spray!

  He gasped and gagged, eyes stinging, his mouth and throat on fire. Somehow he managed to get his backpack off his shoulder and swing it wildly at his attacker, though he could hardly see them through the tears. His legs were kicked from under him and he crashed to the floor hard. Terrified, he tried to scramble away, but he was seized and pushed facedown. In seconds, his wrists were tied behind his back, and he was helpless.

  He stopped struggling and lay still. His face felt like it had been stung by a hundred bees at once, and his throat burned like he’d downed a jar of mustard.

  His attacker rolled him over onto his back and stood over him. Through squinting eyes, Jack made out a tall, lean man in a black tracksuit and sneakers. He had a stern face and a sterner haircut, and a small mustache trimmed with laser precision.

  “An attack can come at any moment, Jack,” he said. “You must always be prepared. Always.”

  “Yes, Dad,” Jack wheezed. “Can I have a sandwich now?”

  Mom sat across the table and showed him chemistry flash cards while he ate his ham on rye.

  “Helium?” he guessed as she held up another baffling diagram of letters and lines.

  “Sodium bicarbonate,” said Mom. “Otherwise known as baking soda.” She was square-jawed, short-haired, and blonde, and she wore a tracksuit the same as Dad’s. They always wore the same thing. They didn’t believe in fancy clothes.

  She lifted up another card.

  “Mffghmff,” Jack said.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Mom told him. “You’ll choke. If the airway to your lungs is blocked, the oxygen supply to your brain will be cut off, and you’ll die. Is that what you want?”

  Jack shook his head, wide-eyed. He hadn’t really considered the possibility of death by sandwich before. He swallowed very carefully and laid it aside, his appetite gone.

  “Now, what’s this?” she said, tapping the card. “Come on, this is an easy one.”

  Jack frowned, trying to make sense of the pattern of connected letters. He was sure he’d seen this one before. “Er …” he said. “Is it … cheesium?”

  Mom gave him an are you serious? look.

  “Cheesium’s not a thing, is it?” Jack said, realizing his mistake.

  “No,” she said dryly. “It’s not a thing.”

  “Froomium?”

  “Now you’re just making up words.”

  “I’m not! I’m not!” he said desperately, racking his brain for the answer. “Wait! I got this! I remember now!”

  “Yes?” his mom asked, brightening.

  “Meltium bidroxide!” he cried triumphantly.

  Mom’s face fell slowly. She put the flash card back on the table with a snap. Jack sagged.

  “Zero out of ten,” she said. “And even that was an improvement on last time.”

  “I still say you can’t deduct points for fidgeting.”

  “This isn’t a joke, Jack.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, ashamed.

  She began to gather up the cards. “You know, you’re eleven years old. Nearly twelve. Most boys your age can name at least a hundred chemical compounds.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true—”

  “And recite the complete works of Shakespeare.”

  “Actually, I don’t think they ca—”

  “And do calculus and complex algebra.”

  “I don’t know anyone who can do tha—”

  “What happened to you, Jack? Why aren’t you trying?”

  The disappointment in her voice gave him a little sad ache in his stomach.

  “I am trying,” he said. But no matter how hard he tried, he never even got close.

  “Finish your sandwich,” she told him, getting up from the table. “You’ll need the energy.”

  Jack picked up his ham on rye, eyed it warily, then dared to try a tiny bite. She was right, of course. He needed to keep his strength up. After dinner he would have to run the assault course out back, and when he couldn’t do it fast enough, he would have to do it over and over until Dad gave up. Then there would be target shooting, some survival training in the woods, and lastly a pop quiz on astronomy or physics or something. He would do badly at all of them. When they were over, he would collapse into bed, tired, bruised, and feeling like a failure. He would sleep, and wake, and it would be a whole new day, same as the day before.

  In the brief time between lying down and falling asleep, he would sometimes imagine another life, with other parents who didn’t act like drill instructors. A life where they did fun things together, like going out for burgers, or watching TV, or playing board games. A life where they didn’t move every year to a different city. A life where he had a family and a place he belonged.

  But he didn’t h
ave that. He had this. So he finished his sandwich and headed out to the yard, where Dad was already waiting by the assault course, checking his watch and tapping his foot.

  The class sweltered in the drowsy heat of the afternoon. Air-conditioning ducts groaned and rattled overhead as they fought a losing battle against the summer. Outside, a handful of unfortunates slogged their weary way around a baseball diamond in temperatures hot enough to melt the fillings in their teeth.

  Jack scribbled at his desk, barely listening to the teacher, who was talking about a book the class had studied last semester. Everybody except Jack, of course. He’d been at a different school last semester, in a different state. Every time they moved, he found himself out of step with his fellow pupils, falling further and further behind. After a while, there didn’t seem to be much point trying to keep up.

  Instead he drew monsters, or aliens, or occasionally alien monsters. His pencil flew across the page, creating fantastical landscapes with a few flurrying lines, amazing worlds where magnificent cities lay under foreign stars.

  In his imagination, he saw them as clearly as if he were standing there. He felt the winds of other planets on his face, smelled the scent of weird purple grasses and giant fungus forests. Whenever he tried to capture them with his pencil, it was only a pale copy of what was in his mind, but he drew them, anyway. And with every new picture, he got closer, he got better.

  Drawing was something he was good at. Sometimes he thought it was the only thing, which made it even more important. When he was drawing, there were no tests, no exams, no one to grade him, or judge him, or tell him to try harder. No one to tell him he’d failed. When he drew, it felt right.

  Mom and Dad didn’t think art was much use to anyone. Not like science, or learning knots, or being able to recognize four dozen kinds of edible plants in the woods. So he drew at school instead, or on the bus home, or whenever he could. He needed to. He had to get the pictures out.

  Since the teacher was paying him no attention, he began to flip through his sketchbook. As he had gotten older, he had begun to give names to the places and people he imagined. That was the watery, beautiful world of Gallia; there were the crafty Jumbahs, selling their wares in a shadowy bazaar; that was the Gigakraken, terror of the oceans.

  He turned another page, and a shadow seemed to pass over him. He felt a chill despite the heat of the day. Staring back at him was a hunched figure, a tangle of flesh and machinery, with a fanged metal jaw and crazed yellow eyes. One arm was a huge steel claw, and there was a glowing pump made of pipes and tubing where a heart should have been.

  He called them Mechanics. Sometimes he wondered why he drew them at all, since he always found them unsettling. But like all his pictures, they seemed to spring from his pencil of their own accord.

  He closed the sketchbook and scanned the room. Long experience of being the new kid had made him a keen judge of character. By the end of the first day, he had already decided who would make friends and who would make fun. Usually he tried to buddy up with someone right away; it was good to be in a group, and it helped keep the bullies off him. But he had kept to himself this time around. He just couldn’t face making a whole new bunch of friends again, only to wave goodbye the next time they moved. Besides, ever since he’d turned eleven, his dad had taken to ambushing him in public, and it was hard to make friends when your father kept carrying out mock assassinations on you.

  But there was one of his classmates who he couldn’t ignore. He found her on the other side of the room, listening intently to the teacher, scribbling down notes. Jodie Ellis.

  He sighed quietly to himself. Just the sight of her provoked a strange yearning in his chest. Every day he admired her from afar, fascinated by her cheekbones, the curve of her chin, the effortless grungy cool she projected. She radiated an aura of leave me alone, which made Jack want to do the opposite.

  I should introduce myself, he thought. Go and say hi. It was going to be a long way to summer break if he didn’t make some friends.

  Maybe he would. Maybe he’d do it today.

  By the time the bell rang at the end of class, Jack’s stomach was in a tight knot. He darted up from his seat like he was on springs, and made it out the door before anyone else could get there.

  The halls were flooding with students as he emerged. He hurried to the lockers and selected a spot next to Jodie’s. It was the ideal place to accidentally-on-purpose meet her. “Oh, hey, I was just hanging out here,” he’d say. “Wait, is this your locker?” Then he would charm her with some witty comment he had yet to think of. But he hoped something would come to him soon, because he was fast running out of time, and she was already walking down the corridor toward him.

  At the sight of her approach, his mouth went dry. His brain flatlined. What would he say? What would he do?

  Talk to her, he told himself. Talk to her now!

  He drew in a breath. Something would surely come to mind. All he had to do was speak. All he had to do was—

  “Jack! Hi, Jack! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

  Jack’s face froze and his heart sank. He knew that voice. He pretended he couldn’t hear it, desperately hoping its owner would just go away. Jodie was almost at her locker; it was now or never.

  Say something!

  “Jack! Hey, Jack!” He felt a tug on his arm. Slowly he turned his head, wearing a fixed grin of horrified disbelief.

  “Thomas,” he said, with a gaze that could have blistered paint.

  Huge, watery eyes peered back at him through thick glasses that hovered uneasily on pasty, chubby cheeks. A thatch of black hair perched on his head, greasy and badly cut, as if he’d done it himself in a mirror. He was wearing a huge grin and an eager expression, like a dog pleased to see its master. A thin trickle of glistening snot leaked from one nostril.

  There were cool kids. There were uncool kids. And then there was Thomas. Thomas had elevated being uncool to an art form. He was the Zen master of uncool. And he had decided that Jack was his new best friend.

  “So what’s going on?” Thomas asked in a high, breathy voice that sounded like he had a blocked tube somewhere. “I thought we could hang out at lunch, since you don’t have any other friends yet.”

  Jack felt himself curl up and burn like a blowtorched slug. All thoughts of talking to Jodie—ever again—turned to ash. Her eyes skated over them both without interest as she opened her locker. He felt her dismissing him. If she had been at all curious about the new boy before, she wasn’t now.

  I’m Thomas’s friend, Jack thought despairingly. That’s how I’ll be known all through the school. Thomas’s friend.

  He couldn’t be near her anymore. It was too embarrassing to be in her presence a moment longer. Without a word, he walked away.

  Thomas followed, of course, trotting alongside as Jack pushed his way through the groups of pupils that crowded the corridor. Thomas was immune to hints, didn’t understand embarrassment, and was almost impossible to shake off. He was like the Terminator of social awkwardness.

  They’d met on the first day, or rather, Thomas had ambushed him. Jack had been wandering the hallway, looking lost, when Thomas introduced himself and immediately started talking like they were old friends. Jack had humored him at first, thinking him weird but harmless. He didn’t want to be rude, after all. Little had he known then what he was in for.

  “Hey, so I was thinking, it’s Saturday tomorrow,” said Thomas. “You wanna go out riding bikes?”

  His voice was way too loud. Jack cringed at the thought that Jodie could still hear him. Some older kids smirked as he passed, red-faced, shoulders hunched, Thomas twittering away at his shoulder. He picked up speed, walking as fast as he could go. Thomas struggled to keep up.

  “If you don’t have a bike, you can borrow one of mine; I’ve got one that’s got three gears and it’s got, like, speed stripes down the side, which the man in the store says makes it go faster, but I don’t actually believe he—”

 
; “Yeah, sorry, I can’t do Saturday,” Jack said tightly.

  “Why not?” Thomas asked. He gave a loud snort as he hoovered a gobbet of snot back up his nose and wiped the rest away with the back of his wrist.

  Jack, flustered and annoyed, couldn’t think of anything to tell him but the truth. “It’s my birthday, that’s why!” he snapped, and immediately regretted it.

  Thomas’s face lit up and his eyes went wide, magnified to terrifying size by his glasses. “Your birthday? Great! So you’re having a party?”

  “No,” said Jack, still trying to outpace him. “My parents don’t do parties.”

  Thomas halted and looked aghast. “No party? On your birthday?”

  Jack kept walking, almost at a run now. “That’s right. Gotta go! Bye!”

  He turned a corner and scooted away. The last thing he saw of Thomas was his big chubby face looking sad, eyes swimming with pity.

  Don’t feel sorry for me! Jack thought angrily. I’m supposed to feel sorry for you! You’re the tragic one, not me!

  But then he thought of Jodie and wondered if that was true, after all.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Yes, it really was going to be a long way to summer break.

  Jack’s twelfth birthday began when his dad leaped onto his bed, screaming like a plunging eagle, and delivered a flying elbow drop to his stomach. Jack was dragged out of bed by his legs, still fighting for breath, and dumped in the corridor, where his mom was waiting with a power hose.

  “No, Mom … Just give me … a second …” he panted, holding out a hand to stop her.

  He got no further. A blast of water slammed into him, sending him skidding up the corridor. He crashed into the wall at the far end and was pinned there, spluttering and thrashing. By the time Mom switched it off, he was battered, bruised, and half-drowned.

  He raised his head, coughing, and wiped sodden hair from his eyes. Mom and Dad, dressed in identical black tracksuits, watched him with that familiar look of disappointment on their faces.

  “An attack can come at any moment,” said Dad. “Happy birthday, Son.”

  Happy birthday didn’t actually extend to getting presents, or a card, or a cake, or a party, or anything else you were supposed to get on your birthday. A birthday in Jack’s house was just like any other day. He didn’t even know when his parents’ birthdays were. He wondered if they knew themselves.