Calahan looked at the stairs doubtfully. “Is there another way out, up there?”
Josh shook his head. “We’d have to come back through here.”
Calahan looked around in dismay. The water was already up to our thighs. I knew what he was thinking: if this didn’t work, there’d be no way out for us because these rooms would be underwater. We’d be trapped and then drowned as the upper levels flooded.
But then he caught my eye and shook his head, dismissing it. If this worked, history would change and we’d all be safe in our new, bright futures. And if it didn’t work, I’d be dead. And if I was dead, he didn’t care what happened to him. I threw my arms around him and hugged him tight, burying my face in his chest.
Josh led the way, limping and holding onto Calahan’s shoulder when he needed to. He led us up two flights of stairs, through a set of double doors and we emerged in a large room filled with desks. A map of the United States filled one wall. I gazed around for a few seconds before it really hit home: this is where New York’s officials—or what was left of them—would have worked, in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Huddled deep beneath a radioactive wasteland, trying to organize what was left of society. A shudder went down my spine.
Josh had pushed four desks together in the center of the room to form a makeshift table. He patted it: God, that was where I was going to lie, while he…. I swallowed and nodded to Calahan.
Calahan sat me down on the edge of the table and put his hands on my shoulders, squeezing gently. “Yolanda,” he whispered, “there’s still time. We can still get out.”
I shook my head. “I have to do this. I have to try.”
His hands tightened on my shoulders. He couldn’t speak for a second and when he did, his voice was rough and throaty with pain. “I need you. I need you like I’ve never needed anyone. Don’t….”
Don’t leave me. If this didn’t work, he’d be holding my body in his arms, just like he’d held Becky’s. It would utterly destroy him. And then he’d die a slow, terrifying death as this part of the complex filled with water….
“You could go,” I said, my voice trembling. “You should go. It makes no sense for you to be here. You could go now and still make it out. Just...in case it doesn’t work.”
His eyes hardened. “If you’re doing this,” he said. “I’m staying right here.”
I stared at him a beat longer, my eyes filling with tears. Then I grabbed him and pulled him into the tightest hug ever, as if I was trying to imprint his soul onto mine. We sat there shaking, locked together, until I couldn’t bear it anymore, until I knew I’d chicken out if I didn’t do it right now. Then I reluctantly let him go and lay back on the table.
“I can give you blood thinners,” said Josh. “But I’m out of anesthetic. It shouldn’t hurt, though. It’ll just feel like going to sleep.”
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe slowly, to control my rising panic. Trust the numbers. The math was right.
I felt the coldness of an alcohol wipe on my arm, then a sharp scratch as Josh inserted the needle. I kept my eyes shut, imagining the blood starting to flow. All I had to do was lie there and let it happen.
Trust the numbers. The math was right.
I began to feel light-headed and wondered if that was just my imagination, or if I’d already lost that much blood. Don’t panic. This is what’s meant to happen. Just let yourself fall asleep. I gradually felt my body going heavy. I thought about opening my eyes so that I could see Calahan one last time. But he was only just restraining himself as it was. If I looked at him, he might just snap and run forward and stop this whole thing. I kept my eyes closed. But I couldn’t stop tears welling up at the thought that I might have seen him for the last time. They escaped my closed eyes and trickled down my cheeks, and I heard Calahan mutter a curse and step forward—
“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “I’m okay.”
He stopped. I could tell he was right by my side, looking down at me, and from the way his breath was shaking, he was in pieces, a hair’s breadth from pulling the needle out of my arm. Calahan!
Trust the numbers, I told myself again, repeating it like a mantra. The math was right.
But...something else wasn’t.
My whole life, I’d cozied up to hard, reliable things. Numbers, facts, science. I’d never been much good at the softer things: people and relationships and feelings.
But since I met Calahan, things had started to change. That night when I’d gone to find him in the bar, I’d felt that he needed me. When I’d found the candy wrapper and gone to the grocery store, I’d been following a hunch. I was starting to trust my gut.
Something was wrong. Not the math. Something else. I was definitely starting to go light-headed, now, and that made it difficult to think. But in a weird way, my dreamy state made it easier to feel. And there was a feeling of...unfairness. No, not unfairness. I didn’t know what it was but it scared me, the fear spreading like dark ink through water, turning me cold. What is it? What’s wrong?
It felt like this whole thing was mis-weighted. Slumped to one side. I fought to think. God, I was so sleepy. I just wanted to drift off….
And then I suddenly sat bolt upright and my eyes snapped open. “It’s imbalanced,” I yelled.
A lot of things happened very quickly. First of all, the room spun like a carousel and went dark around the edges: sitting up suddenly when you’ve lost—I looked down to my side—two full pints of blood isn’t a good idea. Secondly, Calahan grabbed me and held me, his eyes wild with anger and worry. He pinched the tube that led from my arm, stopping the flow of blood. “What?”
Josh looked shaken but was trying to stay calm. “The equations all work out perfectly,” he said gently.
I tried to shake my head but that made the room spin more. “No, that isn’t what I mean. The whole thing is imbalanced. It’s too perfect. All those people on the bridge come back to life, right? And the people you killed, even they come back to life. So there’s no... cost. And everything has a cost.”
“No such thing as a free lunch,” muttered Calahan. He sounded beyond relieved: finally, something he understood. Maybe understood better than me. He turned to Josh, scrunching up his brow. “She’s right. This whole deal is one-sided. These...forces you’re messing with—”
“The dark things,” said Yolanda.
“The dark things. What’s in it for them?”
Josh hesitated. He tried to brazen it out. “I’m not sure that…. Maybe it doesn’t work that way….” But for the first time, the certainty in his eyes flickered.
I closed my eyes and started to hunt through the equations. Thanks to Calahan, I now knew what I was looking for. Something that stood on the other side of the scales, to balance out everything good the spell asked for. There seemed to be nothing and I was on the point of giving up and telling Calahan I’d been wrong.
And then I found it. The innocent little thread of equations that wound around the main part like a vine growing up a tree. It made use of some of the same math, all about bending space and connecting places together, but it was much simpler. When I figured out what it must be, I gave a guttural moan. My eyes flew open and I stared at Calahan in dread horror, my heart crashing against my chest.
“What?” he asked, grabbing my upper arms. “What?”
I tried to speak but I couldn’t. I’d never known fear like it, not even at the crime scenes, or when I’d had the bad trip. Oh God. Oh Jesus, we nearly—
“Yolanda,” said Calahan desperately, “what does it do?”
I was sweating, my whole body damp with it, but I felt colder than ice. “To work, the spell has to open a doorway, between now and the past. But…” I swallowed. “But that isn’t the only doorway it opens.”
Calahan and Josh went sheet white. I knew what they were imagining because I was imagining it, too. The dark things, not just seen in drawings or glimpsed in acid trips but here.
We nearly let them in.
Jos
h sucked in his breath as the implications hit him. We couldn’t complete the spell, now. And that meant everything he’d done, the people he killed...it wouldn’t be undone. “Oh God,” he whispered. He looked at me, utterly lost. What have I done?!
I lifted my arms and he ran to me, clutching me tight. The cool, collected mathematician was gone and in his place was the terrified boy I used to comfort in the middle of the night. This time, the nightmare he’d woken from had lasted an entire year.
There was a sudden, sharp pain in my arm. I looked around and saw that Calahan had pulled the needle from my arm. He pulled off his tie, wrapped it around my arm, and tied it tight, using his one working arm and his teeth. Then he scooped me up into his arms. I looked up into his eyes and the love and protective fury I saw there made me melt.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he growled.
75
Calahan
I was mad. I don’t think I’ve ever been angrier. I was mad at Josh for risking her life, mad at Yolanda for agreeing to it. I was mad at the spell and the way it had seduced both of them with visions of a better life. I was mad at geniuses. I was mad at math.
Mostly, though, I was mad at myself for letting things go this far. I’d felt powerless. I didn’t understand the math so I’d had to watch from the sidelines. Now, we were back in a world I recognized. She was in danger. I needed to get her above ground. That I could do.
My head was still throbbing and my right arm hurt like hell. I had Yolanda snuggled into the left side of my chest, my left arm under her butt to take her weight and my right one just loosely wrapped around her to hold her against me. But even so, every step bounced my arm around and made things move and scrape inside it. Just walking hurt and anything faster was agony.
I ran, spitting curses with every step. Through the double doors, down two floors to—
Shit.
In the time we’d been up in the command center, the lowest floor had filled up to neck height. Most of the emergency lanterns Josh had spread around had failed so the room was almost dark. The few lanterns that were still working were flickering fitfully as they floated around, turning the place into a confusing mass of moving shadows. And over it all, the roar of the water as more and more of it flooded into the complex. Yolanda moaned in fear and I heard Josh curse behind me.
I waded in, hauling Yolanda higher so that her head was right up near mine. But it was slow going: the water resisted my movements and because I couldn’t use my arms, I was unbalanced. The current made it even worse: water was pouring into the room from behind us, rushing towards the exit. In theory, that made it easier but it also made it more dangerous: my feet kept wanting to go out from under me. And all the time, I was fighting to keep Yolanda safe and secure against my chest, despite my left arm tiring and my right arm throbbing with pain.
I got halfway across the room with slow, steady steps. But slow and steady wasn’t cutting it: the water was rising too fast. It climbed my chin and I had to crane my head back to keep my mouth above water. We had to get out now. I waded faster—
And slipped. My feet went out from under me and I fell full-length on my back.
I inhaled water and started to cough and choke, precious life bubbling up towards the surface. But all my focus was on Yolanda. She was underwater, helpless, and I had to save her. But I couldn’t get her above water until I had a firm footing myself and I was still falling in slow motion towards the bottom, Yolanda pressing me down from above. My feet skittered and slid on the floor but I couldn’t get them under me. I needed to use my arms to push myself up to standing but my arms were holding her.
I had to let her go or we were both dead.
I glimpsed her face in the confusion, her hair billowing out in a black cloud around her head, her eyes huge with panic. I let go of her and she tried to claw her way towards the surface. But with her legs weighing her down, she just hung there, suspended, running out of air. I scrambled to get to my feet but I only had one working arm to push with—
A dark shape above us. Then Yolanda shot towards the surface. I stumbled to my feet a moment later, coughing water, and found her being held by Josh. The poor guy was barely able to stand, with his leg wound, so carrying her must have hurt like hell. He was a little shorter than me, too, so his mouth was only just out of the water. I still didn’t trust him. Hell, I still hated him for what he’d done, even if I understood why. But he was trying to make it right. I grabbed Yolanda from him and he gasped in relief.
“We’re going to have to swim,” I panted.
76
Yolanda
I FELT THE PANIC rise to claim me as he turned me onto my back and lay back in the water, lifesaver-style, so that I was lying on his stomach. Before, I’d at least been able to hang onto him but now I was utterly passive: all I could do was lie there and try not to move. The water was only a foot from the ceiling, now, which meant my face was almost brushing the plaster. I was utterly reliant on Calahan: one slip, one fumble, and I’d plunge to the bottom, unable to stop myself—
But then his voice was in my ear, panting and tight with pain but determined. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
And I believed him, because Calahan never bullshitted. And I felt the warm solidness of him under me, the warmth of his chest against my soaked back, and it was okay because I wasn’t alone.
We reached the cafeteria and Josh had to take the lead, clearing the way for us through a forest of floating plastic chairs. Calahan picked up speed as we reached the bunk room: once through that, we’d be at the stairs and then we were home free. But halfway across the room, he looked over his shoulder and muttered a curse. “What?” I asked.
“The door’s closed.” We slowed as he waited for Josh to open it.
But nothing happened, just some grunting. “What’s going on?” I asked, frightened. I couldn’t see anything except the ceiling.
“It’s jammed,” said Calahan, and he couldn’t hide the fear in his voice. “Or locked.”
What? The door had been open when we came through. There was no one else down here who could have locked it. “Put me down,” I said.
The bunk frames went right up to the ceiling. He swam over to one and I grabbed a metal strut and dangled, taking my weight on my arms. Now I could turn around and see, Josh was tugging on the door’s handle but it didn’t budge. That makes no sense. Then I saw the slot cut in the door, one of those things with a sliding metal cover, so that you can see who’s outside before you open the door. Water was rushing through it.
Suddenly, the problem was clear. And terrifying.
“It’s not jammed,” I told them, my chest going tight. “It’s the pressure. There’s no water on the other side. The water must have swung the door closed and it’s built up on this side like a dam. The weight of the water’s holding the door closed.”
Calahan joined Josh and together, they hauled on the door handle. This time, it opened a fraction of an inch. Water started rushing through the gap but the flow wasn’t enough to relieve the pressure: the room was filling up too fast behind us.
The two men got their feet against the wall and used their legs to push. The door creaked wider, wider.... But as soon as Calahan let go to come and get me, the pressure of the water slammed the door shut again. He and Josh looked at each other, white-faced and panting.
“I could hold it for a couple of seconds,” said Josh. “While you two go through.”
There was silence for a second as the implications sank in. Then, “No!” I yelled. “No, you’re not—No!” Calahan was shaking his head, too.
“Someone has to hold it,” Josh said. He looked at Calahan. “You can’t, I busted your arm.”
I started to haul myself hand-over-hand along the bunks towards him. The water was rising fast: to keep my mouth above the water, I was having to press the top of my head against the ceiling. “I’m not leaving you here to die!” I told him.
“I’m the reason
we’re down here!” Josh snapped. The words echoed off the bare walls and in the aftermath there was silence. “I have to. If I don’t, we all die.”
I looked at Calahan. He looked as horrified as me. But then he looked at the door, at the rising water...and reluctantly nodded his head.
Hot tears prickled my eyes. I shook my head in denial. “No. There has to be another way!” Josh shook his head. “No. I just got you back!”
Josh swam over to me and hugged me close. The water was lapping at our lower lips and we had to tilt our heads back to breathe. “I fucked up. I’ve killed people. Let me do one thing right,” he said.
The tears slid down my cheeks as he moved away. No. No no no! There was so much I needed to say to him. But there was no time: in another minute, we’d drown.
Calahan and Josh looked at each other and something passed between them. The anger in Calahan’s eyes faded.
“Be good to her,” Josh told him. Then he got hold of the door again and braced his legs. Calahan did the same and they heaved the door open again. It was even harder, this time. They had to fight for every inch, grunting and panting, muscles straining. All of us had our mouths brushing the ceiling, gulping from the last sliver of air in the room. They got it open just over a foot, barely enough for Calahan’s big frame to fit through.
“Go,” hissed Josh.
Calahan let go of the door and it swung closed a full inch before Josh managed to catch it and hold it. He swam over to me, I gulped down a big breath—
And then he was pulling me underwater to the door. I glimpsed Josh, up near the ceiling, the veins on his neck standing out as he put everything he had into holding the door open. Then Calahan was pushing me through the opening and I was grabbing and pulling with my hands to help. I slid through and floated on the other side, looking back towards the gap. Calahan’s head emerged. His chest barely fit and he had to wriggle and kick, squirming through inch by inch. Then suddenly he was past the widest part and he came through in a rush. As his legs slithered through the opening, I could see the door starting to close: Josh’s muscles must have given way. Calahan kicked frantically, drawing his legs up...and the door slammed closed an inch behind his foot.
Hold Me in the Dark Page 29
