The Maddening: Book 2 in the Terror Saga

by Nicholas Head

  Behind them, Colleen heard a crash. She turned around to see the top of the stairs they had come up, vibrating back and forth. Something was going straight up or down, and she didn’t want to find out. She looked over the edge, and while it was only five or six feet down, she wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t break something as soon as she hit the metal landing.

  Lito called to Jackson, trying to prod him into jumping.

  “You’ve got to catch him,” Colleen said. “He’s too old to jump from that high.”

  She lifted him up and let him down. Lito and Yamuna worked together and caught him. She let out a deep breath, knowing he was safe. Now it was her turn.

  The rattling from the stairs had gotten louder, the sounds getting closer to the top. They would be there soon. If Tacoma were any sign, they could climb fast. Colleen’s heart felt like it was in her stomach. Every breath she took short and exhausting. She put her heels on the ledge, closed her eyes, covered her stomach, and jumped.

  Colleen opened her eyes almost immediately. With three of them already waiting on the landing, there was little room for her lanky body to make a soft landing. She struck the side and was immediately thrown back into the wall. Everything went white. Stars of light floating into her vision as a high-pitched ringing blocked out all the other sounds. Her legs felt weak and her arms numb. It was only a matter of time before she doubled over and collapsed to the floor.

  Lito screamed in front of her, waving his hands. She could hear none of it, only that incessant ringing. Yamuna tried to lift her up, but Colleen’s legs felt like someone else's had been grafted onto her body.

  Paralyzed, but for how long.

  Both Lito and Yamuna lifted her up this time. Their arms digging in under her arms as they pulled her down the first flight of stairs, her lifeless legs flopping down each successive step.

  As they began down the second flight, Colleen’s head rolled back so that she could see up to the roof above. A tiny red-furred head stared down at them, panting, waiting. By the time they had made it to the second floor, she had gotten her strength back, but as she turned around one last time, the head was gone.

  Once to the ground, Lito and Yamuna tore off to the barns housed in the old parking garage. With each hobbled step, Colleen gained more and more strength back. By the time she was to the barn, two horses had stood waiting. Yamuna on one and Lito, the other, haphazardly loaded with whatever they could find.

  “I thought you too luff birds would ride together,” she slurred, her tongue still thick. “I’m riding my own horse.”

  “No, you aren’t. If, and that’s a big if, you get on top of one of these, you'll just fall off the minute we get moving.” He said, putting out a hand to pull her up. Colleen wasn’t about to argue anymore. Realizing he was right, she took his hand and pulled herself up and on. As they galloped out away from the museum, she let her head rest against his back.

  “Did you get our… stuff?” She said.

  Her head was still pounding as the maddening ringing still permeated her every thought.

  “I got what we could—”

  “But what about…” Colleens said, trailing off.

  She was asleep before the horse was into a full gallop.

  Lito

  “It’s quite the pickup line if I do say so myself,” Yamuna said, “It’s almost irresistible, literally.”

  Lito scrunched his face up in shock, his eyes coming to a point. “Pickup line? I don’t… I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  They had slowed down to a slow canter once they had cleared the city. Colleen was still passed out against his back.

  “Not so much a pickup line but a situation that, well, I couldn’t just walk away from.” She said.

  “You’re going to have to fill me into the mystery here because I’m clueless.” Lito put a hand in the air, palm up.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Something about us just talking. Then, suddenly a friend of yours is running towards us with wild dogs chasing her. And to top it off, my aunt trained these dogs, and you needed my help.”

  Lito’s mouth dropped open. Her face remained a monolith, not letting on to any emotion. He had to admit it, he would have had a hard time believing it as well if he hadn’t seen it all firsthand.

  He stumbled over his words “I… I… I don’t really have… a—”

  Yamuna placed a hand over her mouth, and he saw wrinkles form at the corners of her eyes. “I’m not complaining. It was my choice to make. I’ll be honest, there were a few times I wanted to bail, but… you were just so cute.”

  “Really? Because I thought—” His voice grew higher.

  She had nodded her head but then said, “No.”

  “I’m just messing with you. Yes, you’re being cute helped, but no, no guy is worth throwing your whole life away for.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  “I already told you,” Yamuna let go of the reins and counted on her fingers, “One, what girl in her right mind is going to balk at all the excitement we just had. It’s the ultimate pickup line. Two, you’re cute. And three, simple, Her.”

  “You mean…?” Lito motioned to a sleeping Colleen pressed up against his back.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  He relaxed his shoulders and breathed a sigh of relief. Colleen shifted on his back, and he looked back to make sure she was still passed out.

  “I was really hoping you weren’t blowing smoke up my—what are the odd’s I would find someone who…”

  “I’m doing this for the world.”

  “She’s more special than I think she realizes, and I owe her my life. Everyone on this planet does.”

  The two of them said nothing for a few seconds. Yamuna nervously chewed on her thumb.

  “Do you really think she is the key?” She asked.

  “I do. There’s just no other way to explain what she has done. She has a gift, you can’t explain it.”

  “Like what?”

  He lowered his voice and leaned in closer, “I mean, I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, but if what I’ve been told is true, she is what they have been looking for. We must protect her at all costs.”

  “Okay,” Yamuna let out a sigh, then made a clicking noise with her tongue like she was thinking. “Then let's do it.”

  Yamuna put out her hand and waited for Lito to grab it. He looked to her and then up ahead, finally squeezing. She looked over, bit her lip, and gave him a crooked smile.

  Fifty-Eight

  Marisha

  It didn’t take long before Jude had found his way back to the road. He might have been cranky, but he knew the area like the back of his hand.

  When she was younger, Marisha wouldn’t have had any problem finding her way around Oregon or Washington... That was the problem. She had kept memories, but lost the ability to recognize where she was or who she had met over the last two years. The selective memory loss was infuriating.

  Her parents had been proactive and made sure she always knew where she was going. The last thing they had wanted for her was to be helpless when the Terror took them, and when it did, it was fast, and luckily she was prepared. What she hadn’t been prepared for was convincing her quickly deteriorating parents to listen to her. Most days, they still believed she was only eight years old and helpless to do anything. Eventually, they were so far gone that they were just shells that would follow anything moving, so they followed her like a lost dog.

  But now, nothing seemed familiar to her. Everything looked the same—the same trees, the same roads, the same river. Marisha wanted her memories back. It was like the past year had been a picture she drew in the sand, and the tide had come in at night and washed it away.

  They stayed off the paved area for the first few miles, just in case Quinn was still looking for them. Jude had said nothing since he had woken up that morning unless, of course, you counted grunts and moans to anything she had asked. It had been way too early for her, so she should've been allowed to be in a
bad mood.

  The moment they left, he picked up the blistering pace where Quinn had left off. No matter the terrain, she kept moving, and Marisha did her best to keep up.

  “How long do you think we have until we get to Van—”

  “When we get there.” Jude shot back without losing a step.

  “What if we just take a quick break? My calves are killing me, and I need some freshwater.”

  Marisha stopped and propped herself up on an ancient fir to catch her breath. She reached down and used her thumb to push down and into the sore muscles of her calves.

  “You wouldn’t be hurting if you drank more water and—”

  “Did more leg exercises. Yeah, I got that the first time you said it.”

  It was way past noon, and they needed this break if she would make it an entire day. Jude grunted again and slowed up his pace. He raised his arm and pointed toward something. Marisha was about to ask what he was pointing at when she noticed a fallen tree under a canopy of low-hanging branches.

  Jude tossed his pack down and dug through the water-resistant canvas bag. He grabbed her water jug, the only thing tied to her when she had jumped off, and stomped off down to the river.

  “You have just as much time as it takes for me to fill both of these and take a whiz.”

  “I just hope you have a massive bladder or pee really slow.”

  She could have sworn she heard him snort, but he kept walking. Far too proud to admit she’d made him at least chortle. She didn’t care, though. Jude was a good person.

  They made camp just before nightfall. The days were longer this time of year, and he had taken full advantage of it. Jude tried to push harder, but Marisha had seen him start to lose a step not long before he stopped. Whatever was causing him to power ahead wasn’t just because he was in better shape than her. The man was driven by a love she wished she could relate to.

  “Jude, what’s it like?”

  “Huh?” He said, barely audible over the sounds of the evening insects.

  With each step he took, she could see him pull up short, wincing each time he put weight on it.

  “To be in love.”

  “Didn’t we already talk about this?”

  “Sort of. I guess what I really want to know is, do you think you could ever forget what it was like to be in love or forget who you were in love with?”

  He rubbed his chin and spoke a few times, only to pause and start over. His macho facade was slowly falling away. It was as if every muscle in his face let go.

  “If you asked me, in normal circumstances, no. It ain’t happening. You don’t just forget something that strong. If we’re talking genuine love. I’m not talking about wanting to take someone to bed with you over some passing infatuation. No, this is the ‘I can’t breathe without you’, kind. It makes too indelible of a mark on you to just forget it.”

  “Indelible, huh? Big word,” she teased.

  “Do you want me to continue or what?” he said.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” she reared back and playfully popped him on the shoulder. He stared down at the quickly disappearing red welt and looked at her.

  “Let’s see if I can’t help leaving someone tomorrow who slept in late.”

  “Noted. Go on.” Marisha said, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

  “You mentioned earlier that you had this feeling of having someone that meant a lot to you. Like a part missing, and that part of you feels you have just forgotten about them. Am I getting warm?”

  “I have a burning feeling that I had something amazing happen to me in between my parents dying and this moment right now. I don’t doubt it because not much good happens in this ruthless world, so you better reach out and grab it by the—you know.”

  He snorted and nodded his understanding.

  “It feels like what you describe, but every time I try to dig deep for something to hold on to, I can’t. It’s like using a machete to dig for a splinter you can't see. You know it’s there, but all you do is make things hurt like hell. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

  “I said in normal circumstances. This Terror is anything but normal, but you know that already.”

  Marisha muttered a mixture of all the curse words she felt fit the situation. Jude reached out his huge hand and rested it on her shoulder, giving it an almost fatherly squeeze. There was something else in the look besides sadness.

  “Do you think there is something I could do to try to find them in my head again?” Her voice cracked as she tried to stay tough.

  Jude released and pulled back his hand.

  “Marisha, I don’t think it works like that. This isn’t a game of hide-and-seek. This is our reality.”

  “How about you just try?” Her eyes were bursting at the seams with tears she could no longer hold back.

  “I don’t know how to… or what to… or where to start?”

  “Just try.” The dam burst as her tears slid down her cheek.

  “I can’t promise anything,” He said, brushing back a lock of hair that had stuck to her face. “There is this one thing. I can’t promise you it will work, but what the heck. When my parents were first going full Terror, they would try this so they wouldn’t forget each other. Names went fast, but faces, they hung around a long time.”

  “Lay it on me,” she said, wiping her eyes and squaring up to him.

  “First thing, close your eyes.”

  “Really? Close my eyes? You aren’t going to—”

  “Dammit! Already with you?” he growled.

  “Sorry, I have a feeling this part of me is one of the few things that feels genuine.” She closed her eyes and clasped her hands together.

  “Again, close your eyes. Now try to picture this person you want to remember.”

  “I already told you—” she felt him grab her hands and put one of them over the mouth.

  “Anything, anything at all.”

  Marisha squeezed her eyes shut as if it would physically push her deeper into the recesses of her memory. “Two arms, two legs, normal human stuff. No face, nothing else really.”

  “Now, keep that picture in your head, hold on to it, and let it form. Is anything else showing up? Just hold it.”

  “It’s just the same—” Inside her head, the figure developed fingers and feet. “Wait, wait, wait… it feels tall.”

  She let up the pressure as she saw white spots dancing into her vision.

  “Are any colors coming to you? Like clothes, hair, anything like that? Something specific,” Jude asked.

  “Nope, it's just a shadow or something. This isn’t working. Can I open my eyes now?”

  “Don’t give up yet. Work with me here.” Jude took in a huge breath and she heard him slowly exhale, “Do you remember what Kisney meant to me?”

  “Yes,” Marisha said.

  Finally, she could see where he was going. Wanting her to manifest feelings. Saying it in her head sounded ridiculous, but if this guy could do it, who was she to judge.

  “I want you to take that idea and imagine what that means to you. Keep your eyes closed and let it grow. Somewhere deep inside, your mind knows what it is. You never lost it, it just got put away in the bottom of your bag, and you have to dig it out.”

  “Okay.’”

  Marisha pushed her eyes closed again and visualized what a love like Jude had described might look like. She let the dark figure float in front of her. She tried to think of something selfless, something that didn’t tire of her, someone she would do anything for. Little pops of color filled in the face.

  Brown hair. It wasn’t short, but it wasn’t long either. No surprises here. Hair was either shaved or long, but this was in between. Her eyes traveled down to the what else, their eyes. All a blur at first. It was like a looking glass being turned into focus. Brown...no blue eyes stared back at her. A light blue, almost grey color, rimmed with burnt orange.

  “What do you have?”

  Marisha gingerly held up a finger<
br />
  Next was the nose. Nothing unusual about that except for it being small and almost turned up. With a bit more time, the line of the nose became crooked. It was as if it had once been broken and hadn’t healed correctly. Usually, this would feel like a breakthrough, but broken noses weren’t a rarity in the world.

  She could feel her brain getting worn out from having put so much stress on one area, but this was progress, and stopping might lose everything they had worked for. Moving down, a pair of pale pinks lips emerges—two subtle bumps up top, like a flattened cupid's bow. She bit her lower lip and tugged at the collar of her shirt, her breathing increasing.

  “I guess it’s working…” He said

  She whiffled a finger at him again.

  There was something about these lips. Something sweet and tender. They would have to be if they stuck out this much in Marisha’s mind. She wanted to move further, but stars had exploded in her vision, pulling her focus away. They had been at it too long. As she pulled back and returned to reality, a sharp jawline began to quickly come to a point, but it was far shorter, and dare she say it, feminine than most people she knew. The image had come together, but the story it told wasn’t making sense.

  Marisha opened her eyes and stared straight ahead. She could feel a smile spread across her face, pushing up her cheeks.

  “That face you are making seems to be a good sign,” Jude said. “So, what does he look like?”

  “She is beautiful.”

  Fifty-Nine

  Colleen

  Just when Colleen thought she couldn’t adore Yamuna any more, the girl had gone and taken over for Lito, leading the way to Vancouver. It had only taken half a day of him moving too slowly for Yamuna to unseat him as the lead. Immediately she picked up the pace, helping them cover nearly twice as much ground as they had that morning. His excuse had been her safety, but part of her felt he was holding something back.