by Amy Cross
Suddenly Annie fell forward, letting herself spill over the edge of the building. She began to fall, hurtling toward the ground even as Nurse Winter screamed her name. For a moment she wondered whether this final moment would last forever, whether she'd always be falling; for a moment she began to believe that the impact would never come and that she'd always be one second away from death, that somehow this was how it felt to die: an eternity spent in that final millisecond.
And then she slammed head-first into the concrete, instantly shattering every bone in her body.
Blood splattered in every direction as Annie burst apart. What was left of her corpse rolled slightly across the ground before coming to a rest in a bloodied, mangled heap.
A cold wind continued to blow, breaking the silence as it rustled the grass and bumped some of Lakehurst's windows. Finally another sound came, as footsteps rang out from somewhere deep inside the building, and after a few more minutes a solitary figure appeared in one of the open doorways. Nurse Kirsten Winter stood for a moment and stared out at the bloodied mess on the concrete, and then she made her way out and across the patio area until once again stopping as her left foot reached the farthest patch of blood.
She stared down at Annie's corpse, and finally she saw the side of the girl's face.
Annie's left eye twitched and then turned in its shattered socket, somehow managing to look up at Nurse Winter.
“Oh Annie,” Nurse Winter said calmly, “why did you have to go and make such a mess? Have you finally got all that whinging bullshit out of your system?”
Annie's eye blinked.
Stepping around the broken bones, Nurse Winter stopped close to Annie's head and then knelt down. Her knees landed in the blood, but she paid no attention as – instead – she reached out and carefully tilted Annie's face until the two women were staring at one another.
“You're very lucky that this isn't real, Annie,” she continued. “Fortunately, I'm done with everything I had to do in the actual physical world. You're about to get a hell of a shock, but I believe in you and I'm certain that you can overcome the usual period of madness that follows one of these transplants. Go to the radio telescope, Annie. It's not far from here, and it's where I've been waiting for a long, long time. I'm in the computer system there. The plan can still work, but you have to hurry. The entity is gathering and Langheim might already have completed the transfer. So there's no time for madness, not anymore.”
She waited, but Annie's eye merely continued to blink.
“You're not the only one with a flair for the dramatic,” Nurse Winter added, smiling once more. “You know, Annie, I've been waiting to do this for a long, long time.”
With that, she leaned down until her lips were almost touching Annie's mouth.
“Get ready, Annie,” she whispered. “Sleeping Beauty, it's time to wake up.”
Tilting her head slightly, she leaned even closer and began to kiss Annie on the lips.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Gasping, Annie opened her eyes and sat up on the operating table. Reaching down, she made to grip the sides, only for her hands to bump hard against the metal. She fumbled and took a proper hold, but her heart was racing and a sharp pain was pulsing up the nape of her neck and toward the top of her head.
Hearing a shuffling noise nearby, she turned and saw Doctor Schlesinger taking a series of stumbling steps toward a nearby table. He was walking extremely stiffly, as if he couldn't quite summon the necessary strength.
“What?” Annie stammered. “You're dead!”
Slowly, Schlesinger turned to her. His face was bloodied and torn, showing all the injuries he'd received earlier when the brains had attacked him.
“I wish...”
His voice was faltering and faint, as if he could barely get the words out.
“Using his body was almost the last of my strength, Annie,” he continued finally, as thunder rumbled high above the building. “That was strength that I was saving, but I guess I'll just have to make this work somehow. Come to the radio telescope. Hurry. I'm there, Annie, but so are Langheim and the entity, and he's...”
He paused for a moment.
“He's already done it!” he gasped, his voice filled with a sense of panic. “Annie, run! The entity already has a body! Langheim's way ahead of us, but it's not -”
Suddenly Schlesinger slumped down, as if invisible strings had until that moment been holding him up.
Feeling her heart pounding, Annie looked down and saw that a syringe was still embedded in her chest. She pulled the needle out and saw that she'd been injected with something, and then she spotted several full syringes on a nearby bench.
“Adrenaline,” she whispered, reading one of the labels.
She swung her legs over the side of the table and prepared to get up, only to see at the last moment that her feet didn't actually reach the ground. She was naked, and slowly she realized that her legs weren't actually her own legs at all, and then she held up her hands and saw that they looked not only different but also smaller.
“These aren't my hands,” she stammered, before jumping down from the table and taking a couple of faltering steps toward a mirror that hung on the far wall. She could barely manage to walk, and her body felt stiff and awkward as she forced herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Stumbling, she just about managed to hold herself up, and then finally she reached the mirror and looked at her own reflection.
Staring back at her, she saw the face of the girl whose body had been on Schlesinger's slab, the girl he'd been working on just a day earlier. And as a growing sense of horror began to fill her chest, she turned her head to one side and saw the edge of a tell-tale wound running up the back of her head, held together with thick, uneven stitches.
“No!” she gurgled, clutching the sides of her neck and taking a step back. “What have you done to me!”
Even as she said those words, however, she already knew the truth. Her brain had been removed from her own body, and now she was inside the body of someone else entirely, of a girl who looked to be not too many years older than Katia. She ran her fingers across the back of her neck and felt the thick stitches, along with a faint soreness. She knew that some kind of anaesthetic must have been used, and that eventually the drugs would wear off and she'd feel the immense pain.
“I'm not me!” she stammered, still staring at the reflection in the mirror, still horrified by what she saw. Her fingertips were still touching her stitches, but now she felt a faint moisture starting to leak through from inside her skull.
Slowly she dropped to her knees. She'd heard countless times that the brain transplant procedure induced a kind of madness, and that few patients ever truly recovered. Now she could feel that madness welling up in her mind, pushing aside all other thoughts. She wanted to rip this new body away, to somehow find her own real body hidden beneath the child's flesh, so after a moment she began to claw at her own forearms, desperately trying to dig deep and uncover the real Annie Radford.
“I'm not me!” she sobbed again, leaning down on all fours as she continued to scratch her arms, shivering now in the cold. Lightning flashed outside the window, and half a second later thunder rumbled ominously. “I want to be me again!” Annie gasped. “This isn't my body! This isn't who I am!”
Thunder rumbled again.
Turning, Annie caught another glimpse of her reflection, this time distorted slightly on the side of a metal cabinet.
Startled, she pulled back, only to slam into a cart and send it toppling over. Medical equipment clattered down and spread across the floor as Annie hauled herself up and took a couple of faltering steps forward. After a moment, however, her right ankle buckled and she fell again, landing hard next to several syringes filled with adrenaline.
“I have to find my body,” she whispered, hauling herself. “There's still time. My brain doesn't fit this head!”
Putting her hands once more on the sides of her head, she felt as if her brain wa
s too large for the child's skull. A heavy nausea was starting to grind in her belly, and she could only manage a couple more steps forward before stopping again. Every inch of this new body felt wrong, as if nothing quite fitted together properly.
“I have to cut some of it away,” she muttered, trying to get pasts her growing sense of panic. Looking around, she spotted some electric grinders. “My brain's suffocating, I need to get it out of here. My brain can't breathe!”
Suddenly she spotted movement outside one of the windows.
She turned.
Before she had time to react, a hail of bullets smashed through the glass, showering Annie with thousands of shards as she screamed and ducked down.
The gunfire continued for a few more seconds, before falling away and being replaced by the sound of voices shouting in the distance.
Wind and rain were rushing through the broken window now as Annie – terrified and unable to understand what was happening – remained on all fours.
A moment later she heard voices coming closer, and she turned just in time to see several soldiers rushing into the room. Immediately, they opened fire at the window, firing back at whoever or whatever was outside. The sound was deafening, and Annie could only cower on the floor as bullets tore through the air just a few feet above her head.
“Get her out of here!” a voice yelled, and suddenly a hand grabbed Annie's arm.
“No!” she shouted, but a soldier was already dragging her toward the doorway as intermittent gunfire continued to ring out.
“They're going around to the other side!” another voice shouted.
Shoved against the wall, Annie let out a pained gasp as she slumped down. A moment later, a white lab coat was thrown onto her knees.
“Put that on!” one of the soldiers snapped. “Now!”
Fumbling and trembling with fear, Annie struggled to slip into the coat. All around her, soldiers were shouting and taking position. Spotting a syringe on the floor, Annie reached over and pulled it closer, taking care to surreptitiously slip it into her pocket while nobody was watching.
“There are two groups,” another soldier said, while reloading his gun. “That means all the cults are either here or dead.”
“Oh great,” Nurse Winter's voice sighed in Annie's head. “I was hoping they'd take a little longer to show up. I wanted to get this whole mess sorted out before we had to deal with the cults and their bullshit.”
“We've got the building,” a taller, older man replied, sounding a little out of breath. “That puts us in a better position than any of the others. They've got us surrounded, but they won't make a move until they know where Radford's gone.” He turned and looked down at Annie. “Okay, kid, I don't know who you are, but don't act dumb. Who else is here? Where are all the others?”
Looking up at him, Annie heard more gunfire in the distance.
“What about Annie Radford?” the man continued, stepping closer. “Have you seen her? We know she's connected to this place, so don't even pretend that she's not around.”
Annie simply stared at him, too shocked to understand what was happening.
“You can make this easier for yourself if you cooperate,” the man added, kicking her left leg. “Do you speak English? I'll get a goddamn interpreter in here if I have to, but you will talk.”
“No,” Annie replied, “please, I don't -”
“Who the hell is this kid?” he snapped, grabbing her arm and shoving her across the room, sending her crashing down against shards of broken glass.
Gasping, she saw that her hands – or at least the hands of the girl whose body she now inhabited – were torn to shreds. She watched for a moment, mesmerized as she saw somebody else's blood running from the wounds on her palms. At the same time, to her shock, she actually felt the pain.
“They're in at the rear of the building!” a panicked voice shouted, accompanied by the sound of gunfire getting closer and closer.
“You've got ten seconds to make yourself useful,” the older man snarled, once again towering above Annie as he aimed a gun straight at her face. “Where are all the people who were working at this facility?”
Annie opened her mouth.
“Well?” the man continued, with gunfire sounding closer and louder than ever before. “Have you got anything to say?”
Annie hesitated, before nodding.
“Hallelujah,” the man replied, lowering the gun a little. “Let's hear it, then.”
Annie stared up at him.
Suddenly a nearby door burst open. Soldiers tumbled through, crying out in pain, and then more soldiers appeared with their weapons raised. The sound of gunfire was deafening, and soldiers were yelling in every direction.
Finally, Annie squeezed her eyes tight shut and screamed.
***
The blast was immense, stronger than any she'd felt before, racing out from her mind in every direction. The force was so strong, it didn't just cut the soldiers down and silence their guns; chunks of stone were actually blown out of the walls, and in the distance there was the sound of vehicles being overturned and crashing down onto their roofs. There were screams, too: howling, agonized cries of men dying as their brains were turned to liquid.
And at the center of it all, expelling this vast power, Annie Radford remained on her knees until exhaustion knocked her down to the ground.
Her ears were ringing, but otherwise there were no more sounds.
Too stunned for a moment to react, Annie felt as if every ounce of strength had been ripped from her body. She'd used her power before, of course, but she'd always held a little back. This time she'd gone for the full force, even though she hadn't even been sure she could use the power at all in this strange new body. Now, however, there was no doubt in her mind that she'd ended all the fighting in an instant, yet as she slowly opened her eyes she realized that she had only a few seconds of consciousness left.
“Wait,” she whispered, fumbling for the syringe she'd earlier put into her pocket.
She knew she was about to pass out from the sheer effort of expressing her power. Once she'd hoped to use cocaine to counter that exhaustion, to keep herself going, but now she figured adrenaline would be just as powerful.
Just as she managed to take hold of the syringe, she crumpled and fell back.
Managing to keep hold of the syringe, she rolled onto her back. She hadn't thought this far ahead, but she'd seen films where people took adrenaline injections straight to the heart, and she supposed that was her best bet. As she tried to move her hand, however, she found that she was too weak. She tried again, this time managing to move the needle so that it was almost pressing against her chest, but the effort was too much and she had to stop and try to gather some more strength. She was going to lose consciousness at any moment, maybe for several hours, and she knew she couldn't afford to waste all that time.
“I can't do it,” she whispered, struggling even to keep her eyes open.
She tried again to move the needle toward the center of her chest, but her hand already felt far too heavy.
“I'm insane,” she stammered, as her eyes began to slip shut. “I can't do anything. I'm crazy.”
She fought to keep her eyes open, but to no avail. Once they were closed, her hand slipped back down toward the floor and she felt herself slipping away. She waited to hear Nurse Winter's voice, but even this was gone now, as if it was too busy dealing with things at the radio telescope.
Finally, Annie was alone once more.
And then, suddenly, another hand grabbed hers, holding it tight before moving it slowly but carefully to the center of her chest.
Opening her eyes, Annie looked up and saw a familiar face staring back down at her. It was a face she'd never expected to see again.
“You can do this,” Elly said calmly. “I'm going to help you.”
With that, Elly slid the tip of the needle into Annie's chest, pushing it between two of her ribs until it entered her heart. Then, without wasting another m
oment, she pushed the plunger down, injecting pure adrenaline straight into Annie's body.
“Just give it a moment,” Elly continued. “One, two...”
“You're not real,” Annie whispered.
“Three. Four.
“You can't be -”
Suddenly feeling a heavy thud in her chest, Annie gasped and sat bolt upright.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“They're dead,” Annie said as she stepped out of the building, walking across the dark, rain-swept yard and seeing bodies scattered all around. “I killed all the cult members.”
Rain was pouring down, whipped by the wind, and thunder rumbled overhead as she saw an overturned military truck near the far wall. Then, looking down, she saw the face of a dead soldier, and she winced as she noticed that his eyeballs had both burst open.
After a moment, she turned and looked back at Elly.
“You're not real,” she whispered.
“So?” Elly replied.
“You're not real!” Annie said firmly. “I know that, so you can't be here! You were never real! I'm crazy, I just imagined you!”
“Doesn't mean I can't help,” Elly said, taking a step closer. “We made a good team before. You got things done. Then you pushed me away, and it looks like you had a spot of trouble. Face it, Annie. You need me.”
Annie shook her head.
“Just this one last time,” Elly added.
“I can't do anything if I'm crazy!” Annie replied, her voice filled with desperation.
“You can only do this if you're crazy,” Elly pointed out. “And right now, you're standing here talking to yourself when you need to get to that radio telescope. You know Kirsten Winter's waiting for you there, and you know Langheim is preparing to give the entity a human body. He might even have done that already. You're the only one who has a chance of stopping them, and Kirsten's waiting there to help you, but we have to move!”
She took a step closer and held out a hand.
“Now, Annie!” she added, raising her voice so she could be heard above the sound of the rain. “We have to go right now! And before we do, there's something you need to take from one of the soldiers.”
