Hellworld

by Tom Leveen

  Selby pushes herself away from the doorframe, wincing. “I’m going to get something to eat.”

  She moves away from my door, and Charlie takes her place, toweling off his hair.

  “You okay?”

  “No,”I say. “But, you know. Sure.”

  He nods his understanding. “How do you figure the animator found your dad?”

  “One of them went through me, in the cave. I felt it go through. Maybe it knows everything about me.”I grunted a sick laugh. “How’s that for a happy thought?”

  “Yeah,”Charlie agrees. “That’s, um . . . that’s troubling on a number of levels.”

  We go into the kitchen, where Selby is making herself a sandwich. I make her sit down and take over. I need something to do. We don’t talk until the three of us are seated around the table. My stomach gives a tentative lurch, reacting, I suppose, to being where the thing inside Dad had revealed itself. But the lurch doesn’t last.

  Maybe I’m adjusting. That happened much quicker than I would have thought.

  “I was thinking,”I say to Charlie. “And if I’m totally crazy, just say so, but . . . I’ve been thinking about your dad.”

  “. . . Okay?”

  “It’s just that he’s unaccounted for. But he’s the most likely person on Earth to have any ideas of what we can do to reverse all this. Or end it, anyway. That animator thing inside my dad, that’s who it wanted.”

  “Animator?”Selby says. “Oh. So that’s what we’re calling them?”

  “Till they tell us something different.”I look at Charlie. “Is there anyplace your dad might be? Someplace he might have gone into hiding? I mean, it’s a long shot, but—”

  “Cedar City.”

  “Utah?”

  “Yeah. Mom used to make him take us to a Shakespeare festival up there. And we’d go camping, hiking, that kind of thing. Population density is pretty low. Lots of places to hide out, or blend in.”He tries a weak smile. “I’ve been thinking too.”

  “What do you figure are our chances of finding him?”

  “Realistically? Slim to none. It’s a stupid and suicidal idea.”Charlie pulls the towel off his head. “But honestly? I think we should try. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, right?”

  “We could stay here instead.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t want to. It’s in your face. You want to get out of here.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Is this because of what happened to your dad?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  I force myself to take another bite before answering. Not having an appetite is a luxury for a world surrounded by grocery stores and Arby’s. I have a feeling from now on, eating whenever possible will be the best choice.

  “It looks to me like the animators can only inhabit the dead. And Dad died because he gave up. He might still be here if not for that.”I glance at Selby. “We know what hopeless looks like. I’m not ready to go there either.”

  She nods, just once. It’s enough.

  “That’s pretty harsh,”Charlie says.

  “It’s a pretty harsh world,”Selby says. “Not sure if you noticed.”

  “Sure did,”Charlie says, but with a crooked grin. “Okay. So we go. Thing is, I don’t know about gas. Pumps run with electricity. I’m not sure I want to hoof it the whole way.”

  “We’ll use physics,”I say, still looking at Selby. “That solves everything, right?”

  Selby Lovecraft, two-time Texas State Science Fair champ, her mouth full of peanut butter sandwich, smiles.

  Charlie folds the towel neatly and sets it on the remaining chair. “How much of what your . . . of what the animator said do you think was true? About my dad, and the—what do you call it—multiverse, all that?”

  “I think most of it was true. The devil doesn’t need to tell lots of big lies. One small one is probably enough. We’ll just have to figure out which one that is.”

  “You believe in the devil now?”Charlie asks.

  I eyed him cautiously.

  “Don’t you?”

  36

  Then

  * * *

  Selby coughed. Charlie shook his head as if to be rid of me and my theory. That dismissive gesture broke my trance and I raced for the gear bags. Gambling and coming up lucky, I found a small first-aid kit in the bag. Trying hard to keep my flashlight steady under my arm, I brought it back to Selby and pulled out what I hoped would be a large enough pad of gauze and some tape, then ran back to Selby.

  “Stay still,”I ordered.

  Selby did, her face twisted in pain. I made Charlie hold both flashlights, worrying vaguely how much battery life we had left.

  “Just use one. Save the batteries. Selby, I’m going to lift up your shirt.”

  Selby laughed. “Wow, this really hurts.”

  I ignored her. My heart raced, and my tongue swelled from lack of water. I mopped up the worst of the blood and pressed the pad against the wound. Then I taped it in place as best I could. The blood didn’t bother me—I can’t imagine what would have bothered me by that point—but I was no trauma surgeon.

  “I don’t think the conditions are right for petrification,”Charlie said suddenly, watching me work. “So this can’t be the . . . No, it can’t.”

  “Maybe they aren’t now. But they might have been. A long time ago. When the land was wet. Or submerged.”

  I stood up and automatically wiped her blood off my hands on my jeans. Denim, of course, disinfects everything.

  “We have at least a six-hour hike out of here, and that’s moving at top speed,”I said to Charlie. “Can you carry her? She’s a lot smaller than . . . Can you?”

  Charlie swallowed, still staring at her. Then he nodded.

  “Good,”I said. I took my flashlight back. “I’ll carry the bag with the food and first aid. We’re out of here.”

  “Sure, now’s a good time,”Selby groaned.

  I turned and looked down. Fresh blood stained the gauze on her wound and trickled down her side, dotting the wood stone beneath her.

  Selby pressed a hand to the wound. “Better hurry.”

  I gave Charlie a shove, and he went to work. He slid his flashlight into his back pocket, and bent down, picking Selby up under her knees and armpits. He grunted a bit, but when he stood, he stood straight.

  “How do we get up the hill?”he said as we quick-stepped back the way we’d come.

  “I don’t know, just try.”I didn’t like that he was asking me for direction. I didn’t want to be the boss anymore.

  We reached the bottom of the steep incline. I shined my light up it.

  “It’s kind of bumpy,”I said. “We should be able to find handholds. How about . . . Do you have rope or anything?”

  “Uh—no—wait . . . light cables.”

  “We’ll have to drag her up,”I said, dumping out the contents of the backpacks until I found the cords. “And don’t forget the goddamn book. We still have to use it to get us out of—”

  A noise cut me off. A dim and faraway sound that I might have felt more than heard at first. I tilted my head.

  “Do you hear that?”

  Charlie frowned and nodded. My heart began to race all over again.

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t know,”Charlie said. “Sounds like a . . . helicopter or something.”

  I understood his comparison, but disagreed—not a helicopter: more like a hummingbird. They make a deep thrumming sound in flight as their little wings beat so fast they are a blur. There’s sort of a bass component to it that always made me think of big black bumblebees. A resonant, vibrational sound.

  That’s what it sounded like. But bigger.

  Much, much bigger.

  Charlie turned to face the planks. I turned to follow his gaze, shining my light on the floor.

  “It’s coming from down there,”Charlie said, his voice low and parched.

  “Let’s go,”I whispered.

 
I forced myself to turn back to the lighting cord, moving as deliberately as I could make myself. After everything we’d witnessed over the past few hours, I was surprised my body had any adrenaline left. But it did. It most certainly did.

  I knelt down and picked up a cord. I motioned for Charlie to set Selby down; she’d passed out cold, which I took as both a blessing and a very bad sign. I tied the end of the cable under her back and beneath her arms, then pointed mutely to the hill as if Charlie weren’t sure where to go.

  He grabbed two handfuls of the cord and sat back against the incline, searching for footholds. He found a couple, and pulled back hard on the cords. Selby slid upward about an inch.

  This was never going to work. I looked up into the darkness at the top of the incline. How high up was it? How far had we slid down?

  More to the point, could I live with myself for leaving Selby behind? Because as that bass thrumming sound got louder, starting to rattle the pebbles on the cave floor, leaving her was exactly what I felt like doing.

  I didn’t have time to make that call.

  37

  Now

  * * *

  We finish eating.

  “So we’ll go through the house, pack up anything useful,”I say. “Then I want to go next door and check on my neighbor.”

  Charlie stops in place. “What do you mean, check on him?”

  “Her. Mrs. Brower. She’s a friend. And really old. I need to see if she’s okay.”

  “Why’d you wait till now to bring that up?”Selby says.

  “Because I realize it might be dangerous, for one. And for two, I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been feeling just a bit distracted.”

  Charlie shakes his head. “Abby, listen, I appreciate what you want to do—”

  “Good, because I want you with me.”

  “—but we won’t know if she’s really who she says she is.”

  I don’t answer.

  “I mean, even if there are no visible marks, if she had a heart attack or something, and if you’re right about those animators . . . she might be one of them.”

  “I know. But she isn’t.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “No, but I can believe. I have to. I think I’ll be able to tell now. My dad wasn’t acting like himself. Riley . . . well, you saw Riley.”

  Charlie nods, but doesn’t look convinced.

  “I have to at least check in on her. I’m going to check in on her.”

  “But you understand the risk.”

  “Yes. Do you understand the risk of not checking?”

  “Um . . . no, not really.”

  Selby raises her hand a little. “Me neither, not getting it, sorry.”

  “Guys, if I don’t at least try . . . if I don’t attempt what would be, in any other circumstance, the right thing to do, then . . . then, Jesus, this world isn’t worth saving.”

  They both stare at me for a long moment.

  “Look, I don’t want to die. Okay? I want to survive. Badly. But at the same time—survive as who? You know?”

  “Damn,”Selby says. “Here I thought you were just a Girl Scout all this time. Instead you’re all philosophical and shit.”

  “All right,”Charlie says. “But at the first sign of—”

  “The very instant. Yes. Agreed.”

  Dad never had a gun in the house, and now that the army guy’s gun is empty, we’re without a major weapon. I put a butcher knife in my waistband, and Charlie grabs a three-pronged, curved garden tool from the garage, from back in the day, when Mom and Dad would compost our food scraps.

  “Selby?”I say.

  “Oh, I’m not staying here by myself. But I’ll be staying a bit behind you.”

  “That’s fine. Mrs. Brower was a nurse. If she’s safe, we’ll have her take a look at the bandage.”

  “Yeah, or maybe she’ll take a bite out of me.”

  “We won’t let that happen.”

  The three of us walk to Mrs. Brower’s house. Like every other up and down the street, it’s dark. But since the truck is there, I have to believe she’s home.

  I try the door without knocking. It’s locked, and I take that as a good sign. I bang on the door. “Mrs. Brower? It’s Abby. Are you all right? I’m here with friends. Mrs. Brower?”

  The dead bolt slides, and Mrs. Brower opens the door. In what would otherwise be quite amusing circumstances, I see she’s holding both a flashlight and a butcher knife of her own.

  After peeking through the gap and counting us, she unlocks the security door. “Abby! Thank goodness you’re all right! Come inside, quickly.”

  We go in. Charlie immediately, like some kind of commando, breaks right and scans her living room. Selby, true to her word, stays behind me; in fact, I feel her grasping lightly to the bottom of my shirt, like a kid sister.

  Mrs. Brower puts the knife down on a side table and fusses over me. I let her, waiting for some clue she’s not herself. I don’t see or feel anything different about her.

  “I’m okay,”I tell her. “This is Selby. She’s hurt. It’s a knife wound. She’s got stitches, but I was hoping—”

  That’s as far as I get. Mrs. Brower takes Selby’s hand and leads her gingerly to the kitchen and gets her to sit down on top of the table. “Show me where.”

  Selby shows Mrs. Brower the bandage while I hold the flashlight beam on it. Mrs. Brower studies the wound underneath the bandage.

  “I’ve seen worse,”she says. “The stitches are holding, but there’s no way to know how much damage there is in there. There’s some abdominal bruising—that could be internal bleeding, or it could be something else.”

  Mrs. Brower bustles out, then comes back in with a first-aid kit. It’s bigger than the one we have. She starts cleaning and redressing the site. “She needs a hospital. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of those anywhere near here.”

  “What have you seen?”Charlie asks. He has not set down his rake.

  “Whatever insanity has been unleashed out there, they’re not just stupid animals. They targeted infrastructure. Power, first responders, hospitals. And schools. Children. I don’t . . .”

  She pauses, covering her mouth. I put a hand on her shoulder.

  “We know. What’s your plan?”

  Mrs. Brower wipes her eyes. “Stay here. Pray. Hope for someone to get us out of this mess.”

  The three of us trade glances.

  “Will you come with us?”I ask. “Charlie’s dad . . . well, we don’t know, but we think he might be able to help. We’re going to try to find him. We could use a nurse.”

  Mrs. Brower shakes her head before I’ve even finished. She double-checks her work on Selby, then tugs her shirt back into place. “Do you have antibiotics? Painkillers?”

  “The urgent care guy gave me some pills, yeah,”Selby says.

  “Good. Take them as directed. It’s the best you can do. That, and pray.”

  Selby bites her lips shut and nods.

  “Mrs. Brower?”I say as Selby slides carefully off the table. “What do you think? Come with us?”

  “This girl is not leaving this house,”Mrs. Brower says.

  “Oh yes, this girl is,”Selby says.

  Mrs. Brower frowns. “I suppose I can’t stop you.”

  “No, but thanks for trying.”Selby moves over to stand nearer to Charlie.

  “So come with us,”I say again to Mrs. Brower.

  “Love, I can’t. I can barely walk. I’d slow you down. And for what it’s worth, you’re making a mistake. You should stay here too. We could combine our food, our forces. Barricade ourselves inside.”

  “I’d like to, but we can’t. It’s a long story, but you have to believe me when I say we have to do this.”

  She pats my hand. “I understand, dear. Here.”

  Mrs. Brower goes to the counter and comes back, handing me the keys to her truck. “You may as well take this. I won’t be needing it.”

  “You might need to get out of here,
”Charlie says.

  “Oh, son. I’m too old to run away from anything. If the things loose out there want me, they can come get me.”

  Mrs. Brower then scours her house for things of use. No guns, but then I don’t know what good guns would be anyway. She insists on our taking her larger first-aid kit, as well as extra batteries, candles, and canned food. I try to protest, but as always, Mrs. Brower is the stronger of us.

  We all thank her profusely as she marches us out the door.

  “You can always come back,”she says as Charlie hoists bags into the bed of her truck.

  “I know. I will. I’ll come back regardless, I promise.”

  The expression on her face shows she doesn’t think much of that promise. “God’s peace go with you, Abigail.”

  “Thank you. You too.”

  Mrs. Brower shuts the door. I hear the bolts get thrown.

  “So,”Charlie says. “Take the Jeep, too? Split up? Or no?”

  “I don’t like that idea. There’s more room in the truck for gear, but the Jeep’s got the four-wheel drive.”

  Charlie looks over at Riley’s Jeep in my driveway. It hits me for the first time it’s right where Mom’s old Jeep used to be parked.

  “Honestly,”Charlie says, “I’d prefer the Jeep for that reason, except that I wouldn’t know four-wheel drive from training wheels. Maybe the truck is better. Plus, is there gas in the truck?”

  “Probably full. All right, then. I’ll drive.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve been driving this thing for a year. Yes. Let’s move the other stuff over and get out of here.”

  We make Selby climb into the cab and wait as Charlie and I transfer the items from Riley’s Jeep into the truck. Since I was the last one to drive the truck, the tank is filled up. That’ll get us about three hundred freeway miles—provided there’s a freeway to follow.

  Charlie takes over navigation, folding and refolding a map until it shows him what he wants. Just as we reach the end of my street, he asks, “You’re sure you’re okay with your dad being . . . I mean, just being in the house?”

  “I don’t think he’d want to be buried. Too claustrophobic. And I can’t imagine . . . you know. Burning. This is probably best. Thanks, though.”