by Brian Rowe
“You have a feeling?”
“Yeah. We took a vacation near there once. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“She wanted you to call her when we kidnapped him, right?”
“Right.” Liesel sat upright in the passenger seat, stretched, and then grabbed her phone. She turned around, lifted up the phone, turned on the camera application, and started snapping photos of the doctor’s quiet body in the back seat.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think?” Liesel asked. “Proof. For Hannah.”
“Oh.”
“Duuuuuuuh,” Liesel said with a smile.
I still couldn’t believe how lighthearted Liesel was acting considering the terror that was currently sweeping the world. She was acting as if we were taking a fun day-trip somewhere, completely unaware about the millions of deaths occurring at this moment all around the globe.
“OK, I got twenty photos. That should be enough.”
“I would think so,” I said. “How much proof does Hannah need?”
“Enough. Trust me.” She started dialing. “OK, here goes nothing.”
“Can you put it on speaker phone?”
Liesel held the phone out, and I listened to the rings on the other end. I expected Hannah to make us wait awhile. But she picked up after the second ring.
“Alicia?” Hannah asked over the phone.
“Yeah, it’s us.”
“Took you long enough. I figured you guys would’ve kidnapped our little friend Dr. Rice hours ago.”
“Well, we’ve got him now, that’s all that matters.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah,” Liesel said. “It was difficult, but we got him. He’s in the back seat.”
Hannah didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she started giggling. “How does it make you two feel,” Hannah said, “to know that at this point in time, there are no children left in the world?”
“What?” Liesel asked. I too couldn’t believe it.
“Mmm hmm,” Hannah said. “According to my calculations, the youngest people on the planet right now are eighteen years old. That movie Children of Men? It’s now a reality!”
I brought my hands to my mouth and tried my best to drive in a way that wouldn’t run us off the cliff. I had been so concerned with our little mission to get the corrupt doctor that I had momentarily forgotten that Hannah started making everyone in the world grow a year older not by the day but by the hour.
“Wait…” I said. “That means…”
“You know what that means, Cameron,” Hannah said. “By noon, you and your beloved will be the two youngest people on the planet!”
I turned to Liesel. We both stared at each other for a moment, not wanting to believe her sister.
“I’m gonna be the youngest person on Earth?” I asked.
“It… it can’t be,” Liesel said.
“Oh, let me assure you both, it can,” Hannah said. “Good luck trying to talk to anyone in the coming hours. You’re gonna be looked at as freaks!
That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. “Oh yeah? Then what the hell does that make you then?”
Hannah laughed. “The very freak that started this all.”
“Hannah,” Liesel said, smashing her hand over my mouth to keep me from saying another word. “Let’s try to be civil about this. We have Dr. Rice. We’re heading north. Tell us where you are, and we will get there as fast as we can.”
“Send me proof you have him.”
“Of course. I have pictures.”
“Send them now.”
Liesel pulled the phone close to her chin and sent Hannah six of the twenty photos. She brought the phone down to her lap and waited.
“Well?” Liesel asked. “Is that enough? It’s him. I promise.”
Silence ensued. I started to wonder if Hannah was still on the other end. Finally, she said, “Nice work, sis.”
“OK. Now tell me where you are. And we’ll be there as quickly as possible, so we can put a stop to this, before things really get out of control.”
“Alicia… you know where to go.”
Liesel closed her eyes, as if she was re-living a happy memory. She licked her lips and took a deep breath. “Graeagle?”
“You know it,” Hannah said. “The Whitehawk woods. Do you remember?”
Liesel pulled the phone closer to her. “I remember.”
“Good.”
“We’re probably… I don’t know… six hours away? Seven, maybe?”
“Good for you,” Hannah said. “Unfortunately I’m not going to meet with you until tomorrow morning.”
“What?” Liesel looked ready to explode with anger. “Why not ‘til then?”
“Because, I have to—”
“That’s like another twenty-four hours from now!” I shouted, butting into the conversation. “You just want to let the time run out like last time, you crazy bitch!”
“Cam!” Liesel screamed at me, pushing my face against the driver side window. She brought the phone to her side. “I’m sorry, Hannah.”
“That just cost you another four hours,” she said. “Noon tomorrow.”
“What?” I shouted. “You’ve gotta be shitting me!”
Liesel looked like she wanted to punch me. She brought her index finger to her mouth and gesticulated for me to shut the hell up. I obliged.
“OK,” Liesel said. “Noon. Noon tomorrow. I know where to go. We’ll be there. With Dr. Rice.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Hannah said. “Be well.” And then the sound of Hannah’s cackling pierced both our ears, before the call went dead.
Liesel threw the phone down and slapped me in the face. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing the car was roaming dangerously far into the other lane, “it’s just… Leese… twenty-four hours… that’s twenty-four more years on everybody we know!”
“It’s twenty-eight now, because you had to open your dumb mouth! What the hell are you thinking, calling her a bitch? Until we stop her, we have to be cordial, don’t you understand that?”
“Cordial? To Hannah? I’d rather be dead.”
“Everyone we know is going to be dead if we don’t start acting smart.”
My heart was pounding, and I could feel a bad headache coming on. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow at noon. I needed to see Hannah now. I needed to rip her head off and feed it to a hungry grizzly bear now.
“So let me try to figure this out,” I said. “If the youngest person on Earth is eighteen, that means everyone has aged eighteen years since all this started.”
Liesel nodded with disinterest, clearly not wanting to do the math, and not wanting to know the current status of all our loved ones.
“That means Kimber… she’d… she’d be…”
“What?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s right.”
“My parents… oh God… they’d be in their sixties.”
Liesel nodded again. She turned away from me.
“And then my grandma and grandpa…” I didn’t say another word. The truth hit me hard, and the car, again, started to veer into the other lane.
“Cam,” Liesel said, grabbing the wheel and pulling the car back into our lane. “Do you want to pull over and call your family? Just make sure they’re OK?”
“I want nothing more.”
“OK. Call Kimber.”
“Good idea.”
We were out in the middle of nowhere, with no one around. We had just passed a town called Solvang, but other than that, we hadn’t seen anything of interest. We also hadn’t seen a car for miles. I pulled over and put the car in park.
“OK,” I said and dialed my little sister, who was, incredibly, now, my much older sister.
As the phone started ringing, I turned to my left to see an animal running across the pavement. I only caught the back of it; it had looked like a large dog.
But before Liesel could answer, I heard somebody pick up on the other line.
“Hello?” I asked. “Kimber?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. I wondered if I had dialed a wrong number. But then I heard the sound of sobs. It was her.
“Kimber? What’s wrong?”
“Cameron,” she said, “where have you been?”
“Trying to stop the madness,” I said, eyeing Liesel, who was turned away from me, looking out the windshield.
“Cam, you have to come home.”
“I can’t yet. You know I can’t. I know it must be getting bad, Kimber. I can hear it in your voice.”
“It’s not—”
“I know what’s happening,” I said. “I know you and Mom and Dad and everyone you know are aging faster and faster.”
“I feel like I’m dying,” Kimber said on the other end. I wanted to reach through the phone and hug her.
“I know,” I said, “but not for much longer. Hang in there, OK? I promise you, I won’t let anything happen to you. I just needed to check in, and make sure you and mom and dad are OK. I need you guys to know that I’m doing everything in my power to put a stop to all this—”
“Cam.” Kimber started sobbing again, and I knew she had only bad news to tell me. “Something’s happened. And you need to come home.”
“I told you! I can’t! If I come home, everyone’s gonna die, do you understand? If I turn around and come back to Reno, the world… is going… to end! And I’m not saying that to sound conceited. It’s actually true! Without my help, the world will freaking come to an—”
“Dad’s dead.”
I had tried to prepare myself for bad news, but nothing prepared me for this.
“Umm….” I suddenly felt extremely light headed. “Kimber, what did you say?”
The tears had already started flowing before I asked my question. But I couldn’t drop the phone. I needed to hear my little sister on the other end. I needed to keep the conversation going.
“Mom isn’t telling me anything,” Kimber said, and I could tell she was trying to control her sobbing, too. “It happened… this morning… at his office….”
“He went to work?”
“Yeah, I don’t know what—”
“How stupid could he be?”
I threw the phone into Liesel’s lap. I couldn’t take it anymore. The pressures, the chaos, this devastating blow.
“No…” I said. “Oh no, no, no, no…”
Liesel picked up the phone and brought her hand to mine. “What is it, Cam? Are you OK?”
I just started weeping, my palms pressed against my forehead, my fingers running through my hair. I saw two of my tears hit the bottom of the steering wheel.
Liesel brought her hands up to my arm, but I pushed her away, kicked open my car door, and made my way outside.
“Kimber?” Liesel asked, putting her ear to the phone. “He’s going to… yeah… he’ll call you back.”
I walked away from the car, away from the street, just traipsing through a large open meadow filled with brown grass and sporadic flowers, trying to keep moving until my body would give out on me. Liesel followed.
“Not my dad,” I said. “Not yet… not yet… oh God…”
I collapsed into Liesel’s arms and started violently sobbing into her chest. She held me tightly, her arms wrapped around me, like it was last April, and I was a little baby she was carrying.
“I’m not gonna let you go, Cam,” she said. “I won’t let you go. I love you. I love you, and we’re gonna get through this.”
“Why is she doing this, Leese…” I said, the tears flowing down my nose and cheeks. “Why is she destroying everything that I love?”
“She’s not gonna destroy everything, do you understand me? We have a chance, tomorrow, to put an end to this. All of it.”
“Wait.” I stood up, wiped some dirt off my pants, and took a step back, out of Liesel’s grasp. I just stared at her for a moment, trying to put my thoughts together. “If we defeat Hannah… if we put an end to her…”
Liesel looked away from me, a sign that the response to my question wasn’t going to be a positive one.
“Everyone who died…” I continued. “Will they… will they come back? Will time be reversed… will things go back to normal?”
She shrugged. “Cam, Hannah has more power than anyone in this world. And she’s using it for bad, not good. I think it’s possible, almost probable, that when the spell is broken, everyone who has aged, and who is still alive, will be returned to their normal younger selves. But those who have died…” She shook her head and looked back toward the car, then back at me. “That’s a different story. I don’t think…”
“But you’re telling me it’s possible,” I said, trying to keep a grasp on some hope.
“We can’t bring people back from the dead. Trust me. I’ve tried. Hannah tried more. That’s something that’s impossible. When you’re dead… you’re gone… even in the spiritual world… even with all our powers.”
I ran my hands through my hair and stared down at the ground, a migraine hitting me at the least opportune moment. “I don’t know what the hell to think anymore. I’m starting to wonder if any of this is real. If this all just isn’t a big nightmare.”
“Cam… I guarantee you… this is a nightmare. But it’s also very real. And it’s likely that bad things are going to happen to a lot more people if we don’t make our way back to the car right now and continue to our destination. We have to get further north. We have to find my sister.”
I pushed my hands against my sides. I licked my lips and tried to control my breathing. I didn’t have a mirror anywhere near me, but I knew that my face had to be bright red.
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“No. We’re not just going to find your sister. I’m going to take great pleasure in ripping her apart, end to end, until there’s nothing left.”
“Cam—”
“That’ll stop this right. If she dies? If she’s dead, the spell is broken, right?”
She nodded. “Of course. But it’s not gonna be a cakewalk to put her down.”
“Why? Because she’s your sister?”
“No. Because she’s more powerful than God. She has enough power to destroy the world. A punch to the stomach or a rock to the head just isn’t gonna cut it.”
“But the paintball guns… with the silver paint…”
“I don’t know for sure,” Liesel said, “but if the paint does anything like it did for me back in that dungeon, a few shots straight to the heart will weaken her, if not kill her, right on the spot.”
I could feel another wave of crying coming on, but I looked at Liesel, then at the car, and knew we had to continue on our long journey. “This is what I ask, Leese.”
“Anything.”
“Let me have the first shot at her.”
She nodded. “Of course. You can have all the shots if you want. Hannah means nothing to me. She’s not family. She’s a terrorist. She’s the devil reincarnate.”
“She’s going down,” I said, and started making my way back to the car.
PRINCIPAL REEVES
“Honey, cheer up. We’re in Paris for God’s sake.”
Bill tugged at his white robe, which would have been luxurious if it weren’t for the odd pain in his back he had been suffering for the last few hours.
“Honey,” he said, planting a kiss on his newlywed Rebecca (his fourth wife, after Maureen, Janice, and Bethany), “I know we’ve been a little secluded these last few days, but we’re not living under a rock. The world could be crumbling in on itself, and all you seem to care about is sex!”
“We’re on our honeymoon,” the petite and plump ginger-haired woman said, pushing her body up against her husband’s to try to get him in the mood yet again. “I don’t care if the
core at the center of the Earth is about to explode. I don’t want to keep my hands off you.”
Bill crossed his arms and walked across their eighteenth-floor honeymoon suite, past the king bed, up to the gigantic window that looked out over the city. “Something’s happening. I can feel it. Haven’t you noticed how different we’ve looked in the last few days?”
“Yeah,” she said. “We look like two rabid animals who can’t get enough!”
“I’m serious. I’d like to get my hands on a newspaper. I’d like to just watch the news for a moment.”
“Hey, you’re the one who requested no television set. I was against that decision from the beginning.”
“I mean, look,” Bill said, pointing outside at the fires in the distance, as well as the helicopters and airplanes circling up above. “That doesn’t look normal.”
“Oh, what’s normal, anyway? We’re in a foreign country. Who knows how people live their lives here?” His wife wrapped her arms around his mid-section and kissed him on his hairy chest. “It’s come to my attention, from all the movies I’ve seen, that Paris is the most romantic city on Earth. Come back to bed.”
“We haven’t left this hotel since we got here on Friday,” Bill said. “Shouldn’t we do a little sightseeing?”
Rebecca took a step back and scoffed. “I think what you want is a few hours away from your new bride.”
“That’s not what I’m saying…”
“You’re already sick of me. I see how it is.”
She jumped on the bed, laid her head back against a pillow, and stared up at the ceiling.
“That’s not it, honey,” Bill said. “You’re being silly.”
And she was. Bill Reeves thought he had finally found the one, after all. After thirty years of searching, he bumped into Rebecca, a fourth grade teacher, at a committee conference in Carson City, when he was asked to speak about the current economic state of education. As Principal of Caughlin Ranch High School in Reno for the past eleven years, Bill had earned great respect among teachers and super-intendants, but he never intended his next wife to be a teacher. There was something special, however, about Rebecca: her eyes, her hair, her laugh, her spontaneity. And her love of traveling didn’t hurt their blossoming relationship either. Bill, who was now in his mid-fifties, had never traveled abroad before, and had been excited about finally touring Paris. But the two had been there for three days and still hadn’t left their hotel room. It was time to clean up, get pretty, and commit to some overdue sightseeing.
