Immersion

by J M Hart

  On the screen, the reporter standing in the middle of a street tried to make an announcement, while looters ran around in the background. The tall buildings blocked the sun casting a grey haze across the reporter’s face. “The USA has closed its borders,” he said. “All planes have been grounded and the airports have been closed. Cruise ships are being denied the right to dock for supplies. The death toll has tripled and is rising. We are annihilating ourselves. Who said we would nuke ourselves, blow ourselves to smithereens? Forget about the threat from other countries, the battle is within each and every one of us. What is the government doing? Where is the vaccination we were promised? Where has Professor Ellen Freeman and her promising vaccine gone? Has all this madness been an engagement in biological warfare? These are the questions on everyone’s —”

  The reporter ducked. Gunfire filled the streets; looters were shooting shopfront windows and setting rubbish bins alight. The reporter composed himself and pushed his earpiece into his ear. “It has just been reported that the National Guard will now close New York City. I have been advised to stop broadcasting and leave the area immediately but —” His shirt puffed with a breath of air before it changed to crimson. He seized his stomach, looked into the camera, and painfully stated, “I’ve been shot.” The cameraman swung around to where the shots had been fired from, and through the lens the world was eyeballing the smoking barrel of a gun.

  Violently, the gun was pulled back, turned around and the butt of the gun was smashed against the camera’s optics, cracking the glass as the soldier yelled, “SHUT THAT DOWN, SHUT THAT DOWN — NOW!” The screen went blank.

  Amy had her hand at her throat. “God help them; help them all.”

  “You just saw what they did, Amy. Why would you say that?” Casey, not waiting for an answer, left the room.

  *

  Casey sat alone on the back step in the morning sun, shuffling his cereal around with his spoon. The soy milk still tastes like cardboard. He looked up to see the Labrador running out of the barn.

  “Hey, girl, are you hungry? I’ve got a half-eaten bowl of cereal with your name on it.” He left the bowl on the step and went inside, down to the basement.

  “Morning, pal,” Terry said. “You up for this?”

  “Sure, lay it on me.” Casey’s throat was sore and his head felt a little light. But otherwise, he felt fine.

  They both lifted the top trunk down and could see the mold on its back. Amy inspected each one, dragging her hand along the surface as if stroking an elegant stallion. “If you guys could take both of these upstairs, that would be good.”

  “Terry, what’s this?” Casey asked.

  “Its mold. It’s also along this support beam. The wall is stone. Something has to be causing the dampness. Casey, help me with this last trunk.” Together they shuffled it away from the wall, exposing a hole. A few select stones were missing, which had created an opening the size of a small dog.

  “That’s the biggest rat hole I’ve ever seen,” Amy said, trying to lighten the tension that had suddenly entered the basement. “Pass me the torch, Amy,” Terry said, putting his hand out behind him.

  “Can you see anything?” Casey asked.

  Terry was lying face down on the dirt floor peering into the hole. “It looks like there might be a chamber beyond the wall, a tunnel maybe. I’ve read there are tunnels all around here that were used for walking secretively between different properties, like lords meeting their mistresses, or hiding loot from thieves. The Cleeves Cove cave system is north-west of here. Shh, I can hear dripping.”

  “You’re the only one talking, sweetie.”

  Amy and Casey smirked at each other, shook their heads and rolled their eyes. They crowded around Terry, trying to get a look. “We’ll have to make the entrance wider. Wide enough for us to crawl through and take a good look.”

  “I’m not crawling anywhere,” Amy said, losing interest. “I’m happy with the trunks. You two can go crawling through a maze of tunnels, but I’m going to go make us some lunch.”

  “I’m feeling a little tired,” Casey said. “I wouldn’t mind some downtime.”

  *

  “I can smell the forest, how come I smell the forest? Can you smell my room? It’s got a musty smell. That old-grandma smell,” Casey said.

  “Don’t freak, okay?” Sophia whispered.

  “Okay, but why would I freak?”

  “I can’t smell your room, because you are visiting me this time. You came here, you came to me. This is really good, Casey, but you can’t leave your body unprotected. You’re a flame to moths, and you don’t want the kind of moths that are fluttering around the world at the moment.”

  “This feels terrific. If I look down, I can’t see my body. It’s like I am awake within my sleeping self.”

  “You are really changing, Casey. This is the last time we will be able to communicate for a while. We’re moving on — it’s time for me to leave the cabin. Next time we talk it will be in the flesh.”

  “You remind me of Amy. Your confidence — she has such confidence that this virus will blow over and everything will be okay. You even look a little like her, you know.”

  “Her thinking is resilient, mine is not so.” Sophia’s tone deepened. “Casey, I have wanted to be with my family, and the only time I can do that is when I am asleep or astral traveling. Astral travel isn’t the healthiest thing, living in this reality. I have been selfish and have wanted to die. Amy is selfless and tough. I am learning to be strong.”

  “Do you still want to die?”

  “My best friends were gunned down. Mother Catherine, who I loved as if she was my own mother, died a painful death to save me. But no, I don’t want to die.”

  “There’s a lot to live for Sophia. I’m your friend. The universe wants us here for a reason. It wants us to want to live. I was saved from the flood and you were saved from the fire. We have to keep going. I know things are pretty crazy. We went into town last week to get supplies for the next few months: buckets of protein powder, tinned food, a whole bunch of stuff, and we saw some infected people.”

  “How’re the headaches?”

  “Pretty good. The more I practice, the less it hurts. I can move things as long as they’re not too heavy, otherwise I get a killer headache. It’s actually starting to be fun.”

  “Learn to reverse the energy flow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Instead of projecting your energy onto an external object, use it to propel yourself. Use the Earth’s gravity to your advantage; like the opposite pole of a magnet. Flip yourself between the two to draw things near, or propel. Imagine you can create your own flying carpet.”

  “Flying carpet, that sounds a little nuts.”

  “Well, maybe not a flying carpet. Jet streams of energy from the soles of your feet, like a rocket, might be more like it. You can do it. The question is: do you want to do it? You’re fading. Casey?”

  “I can feel myself awakening, I can hear Amy and Terry talking. Bye, Sophia. I’ll be waiting. I hope you’re real. God, I hope you’re real.”

  2

  Frenzy of flies: Jade. Australia.

  It was time to leave the parallel world and Jade shuffled as close as possible to the membrane and placed her hand against it, feeling the coolness. It reminded her of her mother’s lab, the agar jelly she would find in a petri dish. When Jade was younger, she had loved to watch the bacteria multiply. The wall is moving, it’s a living energy. It feels thin and pliable, she was thinking as she felt the pulsing, magnetic field. She pushed her arm through until her fingertips could feel the breeze on the other side.

  “Come on, let’s go.” Tim went through, then Jade and Kevin followed behind.

  Jade put her hand to her mouth as soon as she was on the other side. “What’s that stench?” A frenzy of flies buzzed around swollen carcasses. “The poor things, they’re kangaroos. Where are we?”

  “Back in everyday reality,” Tim said, “where ever
ything has about one per cent of the color of the other world we just left.”

  Jade looked around at the burnt landscape. It looked like shades of grey in comparison to where they had been.

  Tim babbled on in her ear, his shoulders slumped. “It’s where people don’t give a shit about each other, and the almighty plague is upon us. It’s depressing actually.”

  “No, I mean what country?”

  “Australia,” Kevin said. “Where do you think you are?”

  “Home. Myrtle Beach.”

  “You live in a resort at the Gold Coast?”

  Jade looked at Tim as if he had two heads. “No. I don’t even know where the Gold Coast is,” she snapped.

  “You’re from the States, aren’t you? You don’t live around here at all,” Kevin said. “We just walked from one end of the world to the other, didn’t we?”

  “I must be still drugged. I must be … still in the cabin in the woods!” That’s right, I was kidnapped and woke up feeling cold. There was a black hooded jacket over a chair in the corner. I took it and ran. She touched her head — no cuts, no pain, but there was dried blood matted in her hair, a bruise on her arm and a needle mark. “You got a cell I can use?” she asked, rubbing her arms.

  “You mean a mobile. Nah, sorry,” Kevin said.

  Thrusting her head forward and raising her voice, she said, “Everyone has a phone!”

  “Then where’s yours?” Tim said.

  “Look, there’s no point standing around arguing. Let’s get back to my place and you can use my mom’s phone.”

  Jade started scratching, feeling tiny pricks against her skin, and her stomach somersaulted. It was nerves. The atmosphere between them had changed. They no longer had an internal dialogue. The effects of the quantum world were wearing off. The day had become gloomy.

  “We had mobiles, but our parents snatched them because we ran up a hefty bill of twelve hundred bucks. We use prepaid now and never have any credit. Can only receive calls, so what’s the point in carrying them around?” Kevin explained.

  “I couldn’t live without mine,” Jade said.

  “Let me guess,” Tim said. “You’re one of those girls always texting her friend who is standing right next to her, and posting online what she had for breakfast, and how beautiful her hair smelt with the new shampoo Mommy bought from some flash department store.”

  “No! I use it for research, watching university lectures on YouTube and I can calculate mathematical formulas with it.”

  “We have to cross the river. At this time of the day it’s only about knee-deep,” Kevin said. The sky was filled with the same grey clouds and the air was suffocating, with the same humidity that the boys experienced before they had disappeared.

  “Is it always this hot in Australia?”

  “It’s hot, but not usually at this time of year. Queensland wears that crown,” Kevin said.

  “What happened here?”

  “There was a fire a few days ago; some assholes with petrol bombs. They stole our bikes and left us for dead,” Tim said.

  “And that’s when the wall first appeared,” Kevin said.

  The guys pushed their bikes over the flat anthill, yards away from where Shaun had been waiting for them two days ago. They came out of the bush and a dead dog lay in the gutter. Its head looked like an exploding watermelon and it had begun to rot.

  “This place gives me the creeps. Why do you hang out here?”

  “It’s not normally like this,” Kevin said.

  They silently continued on. Not a single car passed by, and only one kid coasted down the street on his board.

  “Where is everyone?” Jade asked.

  “The virus,” Kevin said.

  “It hasn’t hit this bad at home — well, it didn’t appear to be this bad. We always seem to have some massacre happening anyway, some degraded moron taking innocent lives. Maybe we have been infected for years and it’s like bamboo.” She stopped and put her hand over her mouth. She couldn’t believe her own attitude. “That was very obnoxious of me.”

  “Ob — what? and what’s bamboo got to do with anything?” Tim said.

  “Nasty, I was being really nasty.” She rolled her eyes. “Bamboo is invasive; it proliferates above and underground — seen and unseen — spreading to unwanted areas. It’s tough to eradicate, like a nasty virus spreading unseen through our bodies. Lucky your name only has three letters,” she said to Tim. “Oh, sorry, that was nasty too.” She pressed her fingers against her head as if it hurt.

  “It’s been pretty crazy lately,” Kevin said, looking sideways at her, confused at the sudden change. “We thought the virus would pass us by, but it hasn’t, it has created millions of psychopaths.”

  “In the emergency waiting area last night, we watched a man break his wife’s arm so she could see a doctor. Kevin foresaw it, and charged at the man. He was too late and copped a backhand.”

  Jade looked at Kevin, trying to see his face. He tilted his head, letting his fringe drop into his eyes, and looking down at the road. He stepped up his pace and stared at the road ahead. He reminded her of the way she had been before her mom went missing. She’d always tried to hide behind her hair, in case someone saw how she really felt.

  *

  “Hey, retards, yeah you! I want to talk to you.”

  Kevin looked up. Across the street Shaun swung his legs over the side of the roof.

  “Why are you walking in the middle of the road? Who’s the girl? She looks pretty messed up.”

  “Run,” Tim said.

  They bolted down the road and around the corner, turning off at Stewart Avenue. Along Kevin’s street red and blue lights reflected off the windows and he could see a police car parked out front of his house. Kevin went to run inside, but stopped. Suddenly he was filled with dread. He became worried for his family; he was scared something had happened. It brought back the memories when his grandparents died.

  Kevin and Tim stood shoulder to shoulder. “Shit, dude, what the hell’s going on?”

  Kevin focused and searched inside the house with his mind, feeling for the emotions. “It’s about us. Your mom is in there too, she’s crying. Kath’s pissed off and she’s holding Molly who is crying. Let’s go.”

  “It’s about us?” Tim said. “I feel like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.”

  Jade looked at Kevin suspiciously. “Why would you think you are in trouble?”

  The trio walked up the porch. Kevin watched Jade let her hair down to cover her face as he opened the front door. Everything happened so quickly. Alex ran to him and wrapped his arms around his legs. His mother started yelling at him. He looked at his dad who was showing a school photo of Kevin and Tim. The scent of sage and lemongrass wafted past him, he felt relieved. Nanna is here.

  Tim’s mother was on the sofa with a box of tissues. She jumped up for joy at the sight of him. The tissues fell off her lap as she raced over to Tim and held him tight. His faced was buried in her chest and Kevin thought Tim would suffocate if she didn’t let him go soon.

  Nobody had noticed the barefoot girl beside him. Kevin was worried Jade would run. He could sense her hiding, peeking into the room, watching his mother yelling at him. He was embarrassed, his face turned red. She was rough and squeezed his shoulders demanding to know where they had been. Kevin had never known her to touch him aggressively, but supposed it was as close to a hug as he was going to get.

  As soon as the boys walked in, Molly had settled down. Kath gently placed her in the playpen and laid the bunny rug over her before making her way to her brother. She pulled him from her mother’s clutches and pretended to be glad to see him. She hugged him, and whispered in his ear. Tim’s mother pulled him back into a bear hug as soon as Kath let go. Crying and thanking God for returning her son.

  Tim’s voice was muffled as he yelled, “Ma, I can’t breathe.”

  Kevin tried to wriggle out of his mother’s grip, but she wasn’t letting go yet. Daniel stepped in between Kevin and C
allie and hugged him. Kevin wanted to collapse into his arms and cry. He wished his dad would never let him go. Keep it together, he said to himself, feeling his body ready to drop. He stepped back and looked up at his dad and quietly said, “We found a girl. She’s at the front door and won’t come into the room.”

  “What?” Daniel looked up, saw Jade and was at her side in a few strides. He looked back at Kevin, then guided Jade gently into the room.

  Everyone looked at Jade as she entered the room, concerned at her appearance. “Where have you boys been?” the policeman asked, quickly moving to Jade. “And is that blood in your hair?” He pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and examined her head. “There doesn’t seem to be any wounds. Did these boys hurt you?”

  Jade just kept staring at Kevin’s mom, and his mom looked at Kevin with a dumbfounded expression, then she looked at Jade, confused. What are they both thinking? Kevin wondered.

  “But how the …?” Callie walked over to Jade and pushed her hair away from her face. Kevin watched Jade stare at his mother, her eyes filling with tears. His mom pulled Jade into a reassuring embrace and comforted her. He himself hadn’t felt that from her in a very long time.

  Kath leant in between Tim and Kevin and said as loud as she dared, “You’ve been gone for nearly three days.”

  Kevin and Tim didn’t understand what was happening, but they both knew the police had to go. “We’re scared to walk the streets with so many psychos wandering around,” Tim said, drawing their attention. “So we went bush. That’s when we found Jade. She had fallen down an embankment. It was getting dark and we were lost so we made camp. The next day we started out together when the sun came up and kept walking; we were going in circles and extremely thirsty. I thought I was going to have to drink my own urine. Luckily, we found the fire trail, though home was still far away and it was getting dark. We had to stop for the night for fear of getting lost again.”