Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy

by P. Anastasia

  I panicked, thinking people might see the shirt hanging in midair and freak out. “Put it back before someone…”

  “Look!” Kareena shrieked excitedly.

  I gazed back up at the camera feed and saw that the shirt had disappeared. But… it was still in her hands.

  “We can take things,” she said, turning toward me. “It crosses over to where we are and people won’t even know we took it.”

  “That’s still stealing.”

  “Can we maybe pay for it?” Alice asked, rummaging through her pocket. “Shoot. I don’t have my wallet.”

  “Pay for it with what? Invisible credit cards?” I scoffed.

  Kareena tossed the shirt onto the floor and we watched the camera footage for a few moments. I held my breath as the shirt materialized on the screen again and a store employee came over to grab the garment from up off the floor. We stepped back a few feet as the woman looked around, puzzled. She shrugged and went back over to her register.

  “I want to go home, Brian.” Alice huddled close to me and took my arm. “Please? Can’t we just grab a few things so we don’t freeze out there? They probably won’t let us go home until we get this over with. Just like in Vegas.” She dropped her head down.

  I groaned. “Yeah… I guess. Whatever we need to do. Let’s just get out of here as quickly as we can. All of these people are making me nervous. I don’t want any of us to get hurt.”

  By the time I’d gotten the words out, Kareena had already yanked a red leather jacket and a beaded scarf from a nearby display. My eyes darted toward the security monitor. Both items dissolved off screen within seconds. What we were doing was definitely going to weird out the security people later on, but we didn’t have a lot of options.

  “Just don’t take the most expensive stuff, okay? Take what we need, but nothing else. Kareena!” I stopped her from plucking a rhinestone-studded purse from a counter top and shot her a dirty look. “Only what we need.”

  Alice took a heavy wool coat from behind a display and shrugged it on. It fit well enough. I grabbed a black one from nearby and did the same.

  I checked on Kareena again, who was now thoughtfully deliberating between a knee-length leather car coat, and an ankle-length one. Her mouth was screwed up to the side as she compared them to some gloves she’d grabbed.

  “Come on, Kareena. This isn’t Fashion 101. Get something that fits and let’s get out of here.”

  “Okay, fine!” She huffed and tugged the knee-length coat off the hanger.

  Of course. Too busy worrying about fashion to worry about comfort. It was probably below thirty degrees out and she’d picked out a knee-length coat to wear over a mini skirt.

  I shook my head.

  “Let’s go.” I gestured for the two of them to follow. As we approached the rotating doors, I glanced at the security camera video once more. We still weren’t visible.

  The doors swirled around and popped us back out onto the sidewalk. A narrow walking path wrapped around the shops with large “no stopping” signs posted every few feet. I took Alice’s hand and followed the pathway up toward the concert area. Another band started to play. I couldn’t distinguish my own heartbeat from the pulsing bass vibrating through the soles of my shoes.

  “Alright, Kareena!”

  “Yeah?” She raised her voice, too. The crowd had become boisterous again and the music was blaring at us from an insane 360 degrees.

  “Let’s do this.” I motioned for Alice to start taking Kareena’s cues and focused on helping her navigate through the crowd without getting crushed.

  A person’s face when something they can’t see shoves them back several feet is something you don’t forget. Shock. Surprise. Confusion. They don’t know what to do with themselves. Some of them fell back even further and started retreating while others brushed it off and went right back to their excited, inebriated dancing.

  . . .

  Twenty minutes left until the ball dropped.

  “Is that everyone?” I asked.

  Kareena took a long look around us and then pointed.

  “No,” she said. “There’s someone else over there. I think it’s the last person, though. I don’t see any others.”

  Alice followed her lead and we came across a family bundled up in matching bright yellow puffy jackets.

  “Which one is it?” Alice asked.

  Kareena looked down and a grimace tugged at the side of her mouth. “It’s… him.” She pointed briefly at the smallest member of the family—a child—and then dropped her hand back to her side.

  “The little boy?” Alice’s brow furrowed. “You’re kidding?”

  Kareena shook her head and looked at her feet. “No,” she mouthed.

  Shit… more kids?

  I knew they’d infected Peter, but at the time I had hoped he was an anomaly.

  Apparently not. This kid couldn’t have been more than three or four years old, tops. Just a little thing all wrapped up in a brightly colored scarf, waving a metallic streamer like his life depended on it.

  “I… don’t want to touch a kid,” Alice whined, backing up and bumping into me.

  “Well, just do it quickly and we’ll get out of here,” Kareena shouted, toppling forward as someone else shoved past.

  “No.” Alice shook her head and looked up at me with wide, worried eyes.

  “Then forget it,” I said, shaking my head and moving away. “If we don’t start him, what’s the worst thing they could do?”

  “Leave us here,” Kareena yelled over the noise. She was a few feet away now. “I don’t want to get stuck here!”

  “They won’t leave us!” I shouted back. Hopefully. “That would be stupid! Screw it. Come on! Let’s get out of here.” We filed our way back out of the crowd.

  An announcement boomed and a series of brightly lit numbers sparked to life on the One Times Square building.

  Fifteen minutes to go.

  Alice had started well over a hundred people tonight. More than we had in Las Vegas. I’d lost count after the first several dozen.

  Our heads hurt from all the noise and I felt sick to my stomach. The ground wouldn’t stop shaking. The noises just kept coming, blasting at us. The screaming. The bass. The announcers. Advertisements. Colored lights.

  I wanted to leave, but…

  “Alice! Let’s stay here and watch the ball drop.” I tugged on the sleeve of her coat. “Come on, I have an idea. We’ll never get the chance again.”

  We stopped right at the edge of an announcer’s platform, a few feet from the large stage where the bands had performed earlier.

  “Come on.” I climbed onto the platform and helped pull Alice up. I reached out a hand toward Kareena, but she ignored me and climbed up on her own, slipping a few times as she struggled to get a grip through her gloves.

  We sat and dangled our feet over the edge of the platform. The announcer sat behind us, oblivious to our presence. Looking up, we had a perfect view of the building and the ball.

  “From this point on, there will be no more commercial breaks,” the announcer said after the ten minute mark had passed.

  I reached an arm around Alice and pulled her closer. She shivered and rubbed her hands together. She couldn’t start people through gloves for some reason, so she had to keep pulling them off every few minutes and putting them back on.

  She cupped her hands close to her face and blew hot breaths into them. Kareena pulled her coat tightly closed around herself and brought her knees up to her chest so she could tuck them closer to her body. Flimsy shin-height boots weren’t much good against the cold, but they were better than sandals or six-inch heels—her usual preferences.

  We sat there for the next few minutes, watching our surroundings. I tried to take in as much of the scenery as possible. We would never be here again. Not like this.

  All of the moving I’d done as a kid had made me hate traveling, but I had to admit, getting this c
lose to something so outrageously popular was pretty cool.

  Kareena pointed out a nearby cameraman who was infected. Alice reached out and caught his ankle as he made a quick pass by us. The announcer ecstatically notified the crowd of the five minute mark. People went wild. My heart started to beat faster and I didn’t even know why. The overwhelming excitement was getting to me.

  I held one of Alice’s hands in my lap and squeezed her shoulder in closer with my other arm.

  I took a deep breath and exhaled a puff of white. I watched the people around us as we sat there and waited. So much energy. So much life.

  Then the glowing white-blue ball perched on top of the building began its slow descent. The TV screens plastered atop every surrounding store projected the countdown in sync.

  Five.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Loud horns and whistles rang out and rainbow-colored confetti rained down around us. Colored sparkles clouded the air. I could barely see the people anymore. Cheers bellowed from the crowd. People, including the host who stood behind us, hooted and hollered from every direction.

  I’d planned on stealing a kiss from Alice when midnight struck, but things had changed. She was pressed up against me, quaking from the cold, and Kareena was hunched over, trying to keep her bare legs from freezing off.

  The excitement had ended in what had seemed like the blink of an eye.

  I wanted to go home.

  We all did.

  Chapter 17

  Alice never touched the final sleeper in Times Square—the little boy. He and his family left several minutes after midnight. He’d been perched on his father’s shoulders, waving his streamer as he was carried through the crowd.

  We sat for a while longer, until a group of people began dismantling the stage and announcement platform. People scattered. Some stragglers were still burning their way through miraculous stores of energy. I grew tired watching them bounce around, cheering and kicking at the piles of confetti littering the streets. A large clean-up crew rushed in once the majority of the crowd had cleared.

  I hopped off the platform and took Alice by the waist to help her down. Kareena plopped onto the ground beside us and gave me a dirty look. I would have helped her, too… if she had waited.

  I knelt down, scooped up a handful of metallic confetti and shoved it into my pocket. Alice and Kareena tugged pieces from their hair.

  “What now?” Alice asked, wrapping her arm around mine.

  “I don’t know. We should get inside. Warm up in case we’re stuck here for much longer.”

  “Yeah. Good idea.”

  Kareena made a dash toward an open restaurant across the street. We followed her, purposely lagging behind several feet so we could talk.

  “Been a crazy night, huh?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m glad you’re with me, Alice. No matter how crazy things get, I’ll be okay if I have you.”

  We paused in the middle of the street and side-stepped a man sweeping with a wide industrial broom. Alice looked up at me. I flicked a flake of silver paper from above her ear.

  “I’m so tired,” she said with a groan. “Starting people makes me exhausted. I need to go home.”

  “I know. And we will. As soon as they—”

  “Are you coming or what?” Kareena shouted at us from the doorway of the restaurant.

  Alice opened her mouth to respond and then froze, her eyes widening. The pavement beneath me vanished and I covered my ears against Alice’s high-pitched scream.

  The sudden return of my sense of smell overwhelmed me.

  It took a moment to acclimate.

  “Alice!” Jane grabbed her daughter’s hands and shook her gently. “Alice! You’re home.”

  Sam stood in the hallway, jaw dropped, eyes huge.

  “Oh my God!” she shrieked and rushed over. “Are you okay, Alice? Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Ohmigod!”

  “She’s fine, Sam,” I said, putting a hand on Alice’s shoulder. “Aren’t you?”

  Alice looked up. “Yeah.”

  Being moved between places on earth was jarring as hell. Bright white light didn’t blind us and we didn’t lose our breath like we did when we were taken to see the Saviors, but the change in atmosphere was always sickening.

  “Where were you two?” asked Jane. “You’ve been gone for hours!”

  “You missed the ball drop in Times Square and everything!” Sam shook her head and pointed at the TV.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out some confetti. “No, we didn’t,” I replied, lifting my hand up in front of Sam and releasing rainbow fragments into the air. They drifted down to the floor.

  Jane gasped. “Oh my God! You were in…” She covered her mouth.

  “Times Square. Yeah.”

  Sam perked up. “You were there with—”

  “You know the platform he broadcasts from? The one with the big logo on the floor?”

  Sam’s eyes widened even more.

  “We were sitting there, right behind him, watching the ball drop,” Alice said.

  “Holy cow! You guys were in Times Square on New Year’s! Wow!”

  “It’s not as fun as it sounds, Sam,” Alice said with a long face and a tired glance at her friend. “Really. It wasn’t. These jackets…”

  “I was just about to ask about them,” said Jane.

  “We… kind of stole them.”

  “What? No.” Jane pulled back. “You didn’t! Alice!?”

  “Yeah.” I flipped over the sleeve of my coat and revealed the magnetic security tab attached at the cuff. “We had to or we would have frozen out there.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom, no one saw us,” said Alice.

  “But what if they had?” Jane continued. “Then what?”

  Alice hunched over, put her head down and tangled her hands together.

  “You weren’t there, Jane,” I raised my voice in Alice’s defense. “You don’t understand the circumstances.”

  Jane crossed her arms. “I know, but…”

  “No. You don’t know!” I shook my head. “You don’t know how it feels when we get pulled out of one place and dropped into another. You don’t know what it feels like to be trapped in a foreign place where no one can see or hear you but the two people you’re trapped with. We wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t have to.”

  Jane remained silent for a few moments and then shrugged. “I’m sorry.” She frowned. “You’re right, Brian. I don’t understand, but I’m trying to do the best I can. I’m sorry you have to go through all of this, but please don’t get so upset with me. I’m sorry I can’t stop all of this from happening to you.”

  “I need to go to bed, Mom.” Alice reached out to touch Jane’s arm. “I’m so exhausted I can’t stay up any longer.”

  “What? But there’s still a few hours until midnight here,” Sam whined. “You’re not going to wait up with me?”

  Alice had told me how she and Sam spent every New Year’s Eve together. How they stayed up until midnight every year and stuffed their faces with junk food, played charades, and acted like goof balls.

  That was, until the Saviors changed everything.

  “I’m sorry, Sam,” Alice said, looking away guiltily. “I really need sleep now. I’m burned out. New York City was really cold and crowded. I just want to go to bed, okay?”

  “Alright. I’m sorry.” Sam reached out to give Alice a hug. “I’ll be on the couch if you need anything tonight.”

  “The couch?” I cocked an eyebrow. “Why the couch?”

  “Because you’re hogging the guest room, stupid.” Sam propped a hand on her hip and shot me a dirty look. “Duh.”

  True. If I’d only taken a second to actually think about the situation. It seemed kind of wrong to make Sam sleep on the couch, though. It wasn’t that comfortable, really. I’d done it before and ended up with aches i
n places I hadn’t realized could hurt. It also felt wrong of me to ask to switch beds with Sam, seeing how I wasn’t her boyfriend.

  “Alice,” I said. “Why don’t you sleep in my bed downstairs? Then Sam can have yours. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  Alice shrugged. “Oh, um, okay. Is that okay with you, Sam?”

  Sam nodded. “Sure. Whatever.”

  “Well, I’ll see you guys in the morning,” said Alice. “I’m going to grab some things from my room and then head to the basement. Goodnight, Mom.” She hugged Jane and kissed her on the cheek. Sam hugged her once again for good measure and this time wouldn’t let go without a fight.

  Then Alice came up to me.

  “Goodnight, Brian,” she said with a tired, caring little grin. “I love you.”

  I leaned over and kissed her briefly.

  “I love you, too. Sleep well, okay? I’ll be here if you need anything.” I watched her leave the living room.

  Sam heaved a sigh and groaned beneath her breath. “Well, this is no fun anymore. I guess I’ll get ready for bed, too. Goodnight, guys. I’ll see you all in the morning.” She slouched over and meandered toward the staircase.

  I felt guilty about the whole thing, even though it wasn’t my fault at all.

  No one had known this would happen.

  No one could have stopped it.

  Jane and I remained downstairs.

  After several minutes of New Year’s Eve coverage from a local station, she picked up the remote, clicked off the TV, and leaned back in her chair.

  “Well, now I don’t feel like staying up anymore either,” she said and then inhaled a deep breath and puffed out her cheeks. “Worrying about you guys wiped me out. I need some rest, too.”

  “I’m sorry, Jane. And I’m sorry we had to resort to stealing.”

  “Don’t be, Brian. It’s not your fault. I realize that.” She shook her head. “I wish you guys didn’t have to go through this.”

  “I hope we won’t have to deal with it for too much longer,” I said, trying to be optimistic.