by Tobias Wade
“… In a desperate attempt to avoid his fate, Herman offered to write a book containing all human knowledge in a single night in exchange for leniency. Herman attempted this impossible task, but his prayers for divine assistance were ignored. As a last resort, the monk offered a prayer to The Beast who agreed to finish the book in exchange for his soul. The monk famously added an elaborate depiction of the Devil in gratitude for his aid. Since its creation, the book has traveled thousands of miles and has been lost, traded, stolen, and handed down through the generations. The book was damaged when it was plundered in Sweden’s 30 year war before reaching its final destination in the National Library of Sweden.”
“Please.”
“If there was ever a book written by a demon, I’d put my money on that one,” Mr. Wiggins snaps another volume shut, sighing in contentment. “Oh to have my hands on that fountain of knowledge.” Jessica hears it thump onto the pile on the floor.
“We have to get out of here,” Dantes says.
“My thoughts exactly,” Mr. Wiggins rattles. “How do you think Sweden is this time of year? Quite cold I’d expect.”
Jessica rotates her chair to look at Mr. Wiggins’ beaming face. When she’d first been hospitalized, he’d volunteered to visit her on his own time to make sure she didn’t fall behind on her classes. His relentless optimism was the only thing that had given her any hope of recovery. Now seeing him believe her preposterous story without the slightest evidence, ready to turn his life around and fly across the world without hesitation—it was almost enough to bring tears to her eyes. Why were people willing to fight so hard for her—harder than she was willing to fight for herself?
“Thank you—”
The knocking interrupts them. One, two, three, methodical, rhythmic, and powerful. The whole door seems to tremble in its frame under each blow. Back to the window—the figures at the end of the driveway are gone. A handgun has appeared in Dante’hands.
“Hide!” Mr. Wiggins hisses.
“They’ve already seen me—”
“Back door then,” he barks.
“Come with me—” Jessica says.
“I’ll buy time. Go!” Dantes hesitates, and Mr. Wiggins gives him a shove. “You too, soldier. She’ll need you more than I will.” Turning to the front door, Mr. Wiggins shouts more loudly: “Be right there. Just getting something off the stove!”
Jessica rocks in indecision, but a stern look from the old man and another powerful round of knocking gives her the impetus she needs. Dantes grips the back of her chair, and together they hurtle down the hallway, past the bedroom, toward the back of the house. The knocking hasn’t stopped, but at least it’s fainter back here.
“Do you think he’ll be all right?” she asks.
“They’ve had plenty of chances to hurt people before, but they haven’t,” Dantes says.
“Mr. and Mrs. Maston! What a pleasant surprise,” from the front of the house.
No time to lose. Jessica opens the back door, and together they flee into the night.
8
Of all the nights for there to be no moon. Perhaps it doesn’t matter either way though, because all sources of illumination are bleeding their light as though it were blood from an open wound. The glow from the overhead streetlights drips from the bulbs in great globules, lighting the air for an instant in the descent before splattering into a thousand fiery sparks on the concrete and vanishing. Stars run like watercolors, the headlights of cars spray the air in a burning mist, the warmth of lit windows warps into an ashen gray, all soon extinguishing into pitch darkness.
“Your mother and I don’t need the light to see anymore.” Ender’s voice is a stressed whisper, seemingly right behind them. Turning laboriously in her chair, Jessica can just barely make out his silhouette standing behind a window of Mr. Wiggins’ house—far enough to barely hear him if he was shouting.
Dantes' hands tense where they clutch her wheelchair.
“Don’t stop,” Jessica begs, hating the frailty in her voice.
“Atten-shun!” barks Ender’s command with the force of a drill sergeant bellowing an inch from their face. “Abrupt halt, Sergeant Sosa. About face.”
The chair slows for a fraction of a second, then off at twice the pace, hurling Jessica against the back of her chair with the force.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Dantes says, so soft that Jessica might have imagined it, the blasting of a car horn quickly overwhelming whatever might have followed. The last light had bled from the street, leaving a darkness so complete that movement was impossible. The baleful bleating of the car continues to punch through the terrible void—angry, and confused, and utterly alone. The cold wind ceases its pummeling—the thump of the wheels across sidewalk cracks slow—suddenly stopping as they lurch to a halt. There’s a muffled curse and shuffling behind Jessica, but it’s too dark to see what’s going on.
“You can’t!” Jessica shouts. “You have to feel your way—” She squirms as hands reach under her arms to lift her from the chair. It’s too dark to see them, but the warm pressure of their grip lends her courage and she doesn’t fight it.
“Shhh,” Dantes hisses. “We can’t outrun them like this, and your chair makes too much noise—we have to hide.”
“How can we hide if they can see in the darkness? Or even if we do, what if they can smell us? Or taste the air like a—”
“Shhh!”
She’s completely free of the chair now and wraps her arms around his neck, hoisting herself higher to secure her hold. They’re moving again and she tightens her grip, bringing her closer to the tactile security which is her only comfort in this abyssal street. A month ago before her fall—or longer, all the way back since she was four years old and her family first moved here—this street had been her home. At the end of the block was a tree where she’d carved the name of her first crush, a mousey boy with great round glasses which vibrated when he laughed. Then he’d laugh even harder when she pointed it out. This was the sidewalk she’d played hopscotch on, and over there somewhere was the stump of a mailbox that remembered her first day driving—all swallowed up by the alien darkness which choked the street.
Jessica—the one she’d grown up with, had been snuffed out by the lights. There was no going back from this. Even if her parents woke her now in her bed, and the lights turned on, and she could walk again and everything had gone back to how it ought to be, it wouldn’t be enough. The Jessica she knew had died—jumping off the building, bleeding out in the tub—it didn’t matter how. The person now straining her weary arms and thinking with scattered thoughts—that could be whoever she wanted it to be. And if she could be whoever she wanted, then she wasn’t about to be a helpless little girl who dutifully waits for whatever the universe has planned for her.
“Are you still on the sidewalk?” she asks. “I know where they’ll never find us.”
“Yeah, sidewalk,” he pants, his breath hot against her face.
“On your left side, is it grass or dirt?”
She feels herself shifting. “Dirt—I’m pretty sure—” More shuffling. “Definitely dirt.”
“Go back the way you came until you feel grass, then turn right.”
The sliver of hesitation could be nothing but fear.
“I’m trusting you, Dantes. I need you to trust me too.”
They were moving again, pounding on the soft dirt.
“Not too fast—there’s a wooden fence up ahead. When we reach it, turn to your right.” The mental picture forms clearly in her mind. The alleyway running behind this row of houses would shelter them. Maybe they could hide in a dumpster and just wait; the darkness couldn’t go on forever, could it? Couldn’t last forever. And if it did? No, that was fear raising its head again, and if she allowed its voice to be heard then she’d already lost.
BUMP against the fence, a turn to the right, and soon the reverberations harden as Dantes sprints across asphalt. Running through the blackness is bad enough, but Jessica is acutel
y aware of how much of a burden she must be to carry.
“You’ll go faster without me,” she says as they thunder through what she hopes is the alley behind the house.
“Be quieter. What street are we going to exit on?”
“Cortland.” She hoists herself higher and tightens her grip, bringing her mouth close to his ear to ask more softly: “Were you waiting for me tonight? Or my father?”
“Whoever could still be saved,” he breathes. The texture of the ground seems to be changing. Dantes kneels, easing Jessica to the ground while he fumbles with something on his vest. A moment later:
“Sergeant Sosa, requesting immediate evac from Cortland. Lights out. I’ve got the Captain’s daughter, but it’s too late for his wife. Over.”
“Too late? You said you thought—”
The static of a radio crackles in response, flickering to silence.
Jordan, do you read me? Over,” Dantes repeats.
“Are you going to shoot her? Who else is here?”
Static. Silence. Jessica shifts uneasily on the ground, struggling to pull her lifeless legs out from underneath her.
“It’s not just the lights which have gone out.” Henry’s voice. She hadn’t heard him approach, but he couldn’t be more than a few feet behind them. “I think you’ll find that all electrical devices are malfunctioning now.”
A rustle and the rush of wind as Dantes stands. “Not another step or I’ll shoot.”
“Dantes no. It’s Henry.”
“That’s all right, I didn’t expect anything more from a human,” Henry says. “You’ve never escaped that primitive tribe mentality that helped you survive when your neighbor’s village started picking up rocks. It hasn’t been ‘you versus them’ ever since we learned to plant fields some twenty-thousand years ago. It’s only been you against yourselves.”
“From a human, huh?” Dantes grunts.
The gunshot is deafening, shattering the air into ringing fragments. Henry curses something—Jessica screams—another gunshot, all happening at once. Then two more, firing blindly into the perfect blackness which is only briefly broken by the flaring muzzle of Dantes' handgun.
“We’re going. Let’s move!” Strong arms reach under Jessica’s legs again, but it isn’t the grip of a savior anymore. She shoves him back, crawling across the ground to where Henry had been speaking a moment before. Dantes scrambles after her, grabbing her ankle and dragging her away. Her flailing hands land on a rock, and rolling onto her back, she strikes the assaulting knuckle as hard as she can.
“Shit. What the—”
“Let go of me!” Jessica smashes the rock down again, feeling something warm and wet splatter across her leg.
“We have to get away from there. He’s not—”
“Henry! Are you okay?”
She raises the rock again, but Dantes must sense the motion because he finally lets go. Jessica drags herself across the ground—calling to her tutor—not slowing until all of a sudden—
The lights return all at once. Houses and porches bursting into sudden illumination. Headlights from cars parked in the middle of the road, and street lamps, and even the meager stars—all surging into sudden life. Henry is kneeling on the ground, two savage holes clearly penetrating his torso. He’s staring down at his hands which gingerly run over the mortal wounds. Jessica starts to scream, but the sound strangles from her throat as Henry looks up to meet her gaze.
Black eyes, shining like polished marble, staring back at her. He looks as confused as she feels, but it doesn’t last. Soon he begins to smile, prompting her smothered scream to rip free to the surface. Jessica doesn’t resist anymore as Dantes hauls her upright, swinging her into the air. One of his hands is bleeding freely from where she struck him, but he spares no weight on the injured hand.
Henry is already starting to stand shakily to his feet, but another two gunshots tumble him back to his knees.
“About time!” Dantes shouts, sprinting across the newly visible road.
“You try driving when you can’t see a damn thing!” an irritable voice barks in reply. There’s a black SUV parked against the curb, a strong-jawed man with a military haircut hanging out the window with a leveled gun.
“We could have done great things together, Jessica.” Henry’s voice is wet, seemingly gargling blood as he speaks. “It’s not too late…”
She tries to reply, but no words will come. She allows herself to be carried into the waiting SUV. Dantes climbs in after her, slamming the door behind.
“Where’s the captain?” the driver asks.
“I don’t know. Where’s Marque?”
“He’s circling around. He should be here any second—”
Right on cue, there’s a man sprinting around the other side of the house toward the front of the car.
“Ender’s here!” he’s shouting. “He’s right behind—” he slows a half step, spinning in confusion. “He was a second ago—”
“Your friend is standing in the headlights,” Jessica says, pointing.
“Quiet, kid—” from the driver.
“His shadow. If the light is on him, then his shadow should be behind him. It’s in front.”
A tense pause as both men consider this. “Get out of there, Marque. In the car—now!”
“I’m not leaving without the captain—” he protests. Sirens begin howling in the distance.
“He’s already here!” Jessica shouts. Marque is spinning in bewilderment again. Ender is there—stepping out of Marque’s shadow as smoothly as though he’d been there all along. It’s not that he simply materialized in the space so much as the shadow itself is rearing onto its feet to stand directly beside the soldier. A dozen feet away from the car, but close enough for Jessica to see Marque’s hand reflexively tighten on the gun.
“Don’t shoot him!” she screams.
Hesitation. Marque and Ender standing barely inches apart, face-to-face, the gun’s muzzle pressed directly against Ender’s chest.
“Captain—”
The gun doesn’t go off. Jessica can’t tell if it’s because Marque didn’t have the time, or whether he decided not to fire, but before she can scream again Ender’s hands are on Marque’s throat. Then through the throat—shattering his neck with a single movement so vicious that Ender’s hand tears straight through to the other side, burying itself up to the wrist.
“I told you not to follow me,” Ender says dispassionately.
Marque tries to pull in air, but it spews from the hole in his throat with a wave of blood. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.
“Drive, private!” Dantes bellows.
The older driver stiffens at the tone, hesitating. “We have to kill it—”
“Can’t with bullets. Drive, now!”
“What are you doing?” Jessica screams. “We have to help him!”
“I already told you. We leave the dead behind.”
“Your call, Sergeant,” the driver bites off the final word. The engine roars to life, carrying Jessica irrevocably away from the only world she’d ever known.
9
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Jessica says into the heavy air.
They aren’t making a mad getaway anymore, but there is something almost more terrifying about the endless rhythmic thumps as the van drives into the oppressive night.
“Sorry about your parents,” the driver says, who had introduced himself as Jordan. Mid forties, salt-and-pepper hair, a graveled voice and purposeful movements—it’s hard to believe this man took orders from the young soldier who had rescued her.
“Don’t say that like they’re gone,” she says, but there’s no fight in her voice.
Jordan glances back at Jessica, only meeting her eyes for a moment before breaking away. Dantes is still nursing the hand that Jessica had struck with a rock.
“I think one of the knuckles is broken,” Dantes grunts.
“Maybe if you’d bothered to explain before you started shooting�
�”
“Combat doesn’t allow such luxuries. I should have just left you there to become one of them. That’s what would have happened, you know. They would have forced you to take the seed.”
“I don’t think they can,” she says, turning back to look out the window. She considers asking where they’re going, but decides there isn’t any point. She couldn’t go back home—not now, not ever again. Wherever she ended up seemed as good a place as any.
“What do you mean? Ender got your mom and that man in less than 24 hours,” Jordan says.
“Don’t call that thing Ender. It’s an insult to his memory.” The sudden steel in Dantes' voice. Jessica suddenly understands how the older man could take orders from someone like that.
“They didn’t try to force it on me,” she says. “They said it had to be my choice, and that dad would give me anything I wanted if I accepted.”
“That thing is not your dad either,” Dantes interjects.
“What about the man who was shot?” Jordan asks.
“That is—was—Henry, one of my teachers. He didn’t seem appalled by the idea. If anything, he said he would have used it to search for knowledge.”
“So let me get this straight. Ender—” Jordan begins.
“I told you not to call him that.”
“Back when he was still Ender though. He took the first seed, and that’s what made the statues help us escape. Then he gave it to his wife—what did she get out of it?”
Both men look to Jessica. So much had been going on, she hadn’t even stopped to think about what must have been going through her mother’s head when she accepted the deal. It was all Jessica’s fault. Though the razor blade sank into her skin, she hadn’t killed herself in that bathtub. She’d killed her own mother. Her breathing comes fast, but she can’t calm down. Screaming wouldn’t help. Crying wouldn’t help. If that wish is real, then she can’t even hurt herself like she deserved anymore.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it right now,” Dantes says, squeezing her hand. She rips away from him and presses herself against the car door.
