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Strange Days

Page 32

by Constantine J. Singer


  IT’S TIME.

  “Corina.” Both her forms are in my mind right now, fully present, filling me and I cannot tell them apart. “I don’t want you to die.” I say it to one of them, but I don’t know which one.

  “SEEN TIME.” Then she’s quiet. Then: “IS THE ONLY TRUTH.”

  “DON’T BE SCARED, BOY. I LOVE YOU, PLUGZER,” they say together, a chorus, and I know this is near the end for her.

  “NO!”

  “DO WHAT YOU’VE ALREADY DONE, PLUGZ. IT’S THE ONLY WAY.”

  And then one of them is gone and the other one’s all business.

  “Time to go, Plugzer,” Corina thinks to me, and I know it’s the live one, waiting for us to move down in Slab City.

  I close the Jeep door and put Sybil’s little package where she told me.

  Sixty-Eight

  We just walk up to the gate, my head a swirl of anxiety, sadness, and nerves. It opens before we stop walking and we just continue in.

  “Hey, Alex!” somebody calls from somewhere off the driveway, scaring the hell out of me.

  I hunker and turn to find the Voice.

  A muscleman in a guard uniform is waving at us from the doorway of a small guard shack hidden in the underbrush. Nick.

  Cassandra looks at me. I give her a little shrug and rise up slowly. “Hey, Nick.” I wave.

  He raises his chin at us and steps back inside.

  “That’s just weird,” Cassandra whispers.

  I don’t disagree.

  The whole area along the side of the driveway is brilliant green and in bloom. There’re more flowers than I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to remember that we’re about to do something horribly dangerous and stupid when there are such pretty things all over.

  “It’s really nice here,” Cassandra whispers.

  I nod.

  The circle driveway comes into view. The car is in its usual place and I briefly wonder who the new lead witness is since Corina left.

  “Where are we going?” Cassandra asks.

  I slow to a stop and cast down into the Syllogos, searching for the faint sustained notes. They’re close, but it’s hard to tell where, because geography and the Syllogos don’t match up exactly. I think they’re in front of us, toward the main house, but I’m not sure.

  “Sabazios first,” I tell her. “I think he’s—” But I’m cut short when the door to the main house swings open. Cassandra and I both tense to run.

  “How can I help?” a guard calls to us. I hone in on his music. Alan Garcia.

  “I need to see Sabazios,” I tell him.

  He hesitates. “I can’t arrange that—I don’t even have access.”

  I search his mind. He’s not lying. “Then take me to the place where they take the witnesses when they’re no longer useful.”

  “What are witnesses?” He’s honestly confused.

  “From the guest quarters in the back.”

  “The kids?” He steps out the doorway toward us.

  Cassandra rolls her eyes. “Yes, the kids.”

  Alan’s eyes look sad. He’s desperate to help us.

  I grab his arm. “Just open the door to the Long Hall, okay?”

  “Sure,” Alan replies. I can feel his relief. He’s going to be helpful. He leads us to the door to the Long Hall and uses his hand to open it. “This way.” He ushers us in.

  “Alex, something’s wrong.” Corina’s worry invades.

  I search the Syllogos around me. I hear nothing that worries me. There’s nobody excited or angry nearby. Nobody but Alan and Nick even seem to have any idea we’re here.

  “Everything’s cool.” I send back as much relaxed vibe as I can manage, but it doesn’t comfort her. Her nervousness makes me edgy.

  “You first,” I tell Alan. “Go fast and get the far door open onto the deck.”

  He nods and jogs down the hallway. Cassandra and I follow him, both working hard to keep the psychic wallpaper from decorating the hallway with our lousy happy memories. “What now?” Cassandra whispers as we get to the deck door.

  “Sabazios is in Richard’s office.” Corina’s voice is clear in my head. She’s scared.

  “What’s wrong?” I can feel her, but she’s not focused on me. Something else has her attention. Something bad. “Corina?!”

  “Just be patient,” I tell Cassandra. I listen again. All the music is calm, regular. There’s nothing I can find to worry about. I look at Alan. “Open the gym doors for us.”

  “Corina?!” Silence. Silence and fear. She’s so afraid I’m finding it hard to breathe as we walk quickly across the patio to the stairway door.

  When she answers, she’s so loud and present, I stumble when she starts talking. “It’s our time, scared boy . . .” And then she’s silent.

  It’s not alive Corina, it’s my Voice.

  “CORINA!!?”

  No response. Just fear.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Cassandra asks in a low whisper.

  I’m shaking. I can barely walk. “Back at the trailer,” I whisper. “Something bad is happening and I can’t get Corina to talk to me.”

  Alan opens the door for us.

  “You go first,” Cassandra tells him.

  He shakes his head. “It’ll be better for me to secure the door behind you.”

  She looks at me, but has no instructions. I’m barely holding it together. “Just go,” I tell her. I can’t stand still any longer or I’m going to vomit.

  She walks into the gym.

  As I’m walking past Alan onto the floor, everything changes. There’s a charge of energy, something I can’t control. It makes me fall onto my knees. I feel like I’m exploding inside, my organs are popping and my heart has blown up to twenty times its normal size and it’s breaking my ribs with each beat.

  Cassandra asks me what’s wrong and I hear somebody making noise.

  It’s me. I’m screaming.

  “RUN AWAY!” Corina’s voice is so loud that it hurts my mind. The words pound against my eyes. I press my hands against them to keep them from falling out.

  “CORINA!!!!” I yell it as loud as I can, inside and out.

  “IT’S A TRAP SABAZIOS IS READY FOR YOU! RUN AWAY RUN AWAY!”

  And then I’m being pulled under. Corina’s taking me to her. I’m looking through her eyes and what I see is horrendous.

  The sky is bright and it’s hot. We’re lying down on a blanket that’s rough under our backs. There are stones underneath it that Corina no longer feels but I’m now aware of. I see the school bus above me. We’re right outside the door.

  We can’t move because we’re underneath in the Syllogos. We’re watching instead. Someone is standing over us. A man.

  Bicycle Man. It doesn’t look like my hitting him with the rock did any damage at all.

  Sal is nearby. I can see him, but he’s not making any sound. Blood pools around him. He’s dead. Erica is next to him. She’s bleeding out. A single soft note, fading.

  I try to help Corina get up, but we can’t, not unless we break the connection.

  LET ME GO! I tell her. YOU CAN FIGHT IF YOU LET ME GO.

  “I’m scared.”

  YOU’VE GOT TO FIGHT! I plead, watching Bicycle Man step closer and kneel down, pulling the blade up above his head, ready to bring it down into Corina.

  The blade starts its descent . . .

  Then I’m back in the doorway at Sabazios’s compound. Corina’s with me in my head. “Alex, I’m scared.”

  Then she’s gone.

  I’m all alone.

  There’s nothing. There’s no music. There’s nothing at all. I can’t hear Corina and I can’t hear Cassandra or Alan, who’s next to me. The Jungle is gone.

  I’m completely cut off.

  I close my eyes, reach out for Corina
, but it’s like I’m in an empty room. There’s nothing but silence.

  Someone’s blocked the Syllogos.

  I turn toward the door, but it’s already closed. “Open the door!” I yell to Alan.

  He holds out his hand to the door, but nothing happens. He looks at me apologetically.

  “What the hell?” Cassandra’s behind me.

  “It was a trap—they’re all dead.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  “Welcome back, Alex.” Sabazios’s voice is smooth and familiar. It’s the voice of death himself.

  Cassandra and I turn around together, pressed against each other for support. I feel naked without the Jungle. Empty without Corina. Naked and blind. He’s standing at the door to Richard’s office, looking relaxed, like there’s nothing wrong in the world.

  The world around me fades to a pinpoint around his face. I don’t even feel the floor under my feet.

  He doesn’t react to my approach, but there’s something in his hand. I duck, but he gets me with it. I feel it stick to my . . .

  Sixty-Nine

  Neck.

  Everything’s different. I’m not in the gym, I’m in a chair in a small room with white walls. I try to stand up, but I can’t move my arms or legs. I look down and there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with them.

  I’m just paralyzed.

  I try to look around, but I can’t even move my head. I can feel a small weight on the back of my neck, though, where Sabazios hit me with the Live-Tech thing. It must still be there.

  The silence is killing me. There’s nothing inside or out. The Jungle is gone. There’s no noise at all. There’s no hum from air-conditioning or noises from outside. There’s no voices or movement from anywhere else vibrating through the floor.

  My ears hurt from the silence.

  I open my mouth to speak. I can’t. I can breathe, but I can’t use my vocal cords. I try clicking my tongue. I can’t.

  I cannot make any sound. I cannot hear any sound.

  I cannot move.

  And I cannot get the last moments of Corina’s life out of my head. I see Bicycle Man over her with the knife. I see the knife go up and I know what happens next. The image starts again. Over and over. I can’t stop it. I can’t shake my head.

  All I can do is sit still and see it.

  The light in the room disappears, leaving me in blackness.

  I have to pee. I try and hold it, but I can’t—it just leaks out and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  The dark is dark. The silence.

  Is silent.

  Corina is murdered again.

  The Dark.

  I have screwed up in so many ways. They would all be alive if it wasn’t for me.

  The Earth is going to be destroyed. Because of me.

  Corina is dead. Because of me.

  Because of me.

  Because of me.

  My fault.

  I should have stayed scared.

  The Dark is dark.

  Dark.

  Silent.

  Then a sudden flash of brilliant white light comes from everywhere in the room. It blinds me, and at the same time there’s a noise that nearly breaks my eardrums—a single whoop from the loudest car alarm in the universe.

  Then it’s dark again.

  Then it’s quiet again.

  My eyes are seeing stars.

  My ears are ringing.

  I can’t tell dark from light and I can’t tell silence from noise.

  I can’t tell anything. I don’t know anything except that it’s all my fault.

  Seventy

  I’ve been in here for hours. Days. The light and noise have come again and gone again more than once. A hundred times. A thousand. More than. I haven’t slept.

  When he begins to talk to me, I don’t know for sure that he’s talking or who it is. I’m not even sure that I’m hearing anything. I could be crazy.

  “Why did you run?” he asks. “We’re saving the Earth and you ran away.”

  Sabazios? “You’re going to destroy the Earth.” I’m not sure if I’ve said it aloud or not.

  The lights come on. I squint against them, but they’re not the bright bright lights. I open my eyes. I look down at myself and I feel sick. I’m still in the chair, but my pants are dry again, stiff. I feel like I want to vomit, but I haven’t eaten or drunk anything since I’ve been here. I have nothing inside.

  “Sabazios?” I ask. Even if it is him, even though he’s the one who has destroyed everything, the one who killed Corina, my parents, Sal, Erica, probably Paul and Cassandra, too, I want to hear his voice again.

  Any voice.

  “Yes, Alex,” he says. It’s coming from everywhere, above, below, in front, behind, left, right. Surround sound. Like God. “I’m here.”

  “You’re going to destroy the Earth,” I say, but suddenly it doesn’t seem like it could be true.

  “Who told you that?” he asks. He sounds hurt, sad.

  “It’s true,” I say, but I’m not so sure.

  “It’s not true, Alex,” he says, “and if you’re going to accuse me of things like that, I don’t think I want to talk with you.”

  “No! Don’t go!” I need him to talk with me. Without him, there’s nothing but silence.

  “I’m not going to destroy the Earth,” he tells me. “Do you believe me?”

  “Yes,” I say. I do believe him. He’s here. He’s someone. I remember the rest of it, but somehow I can’t seem to make it important to me. All that matters is his voice and not being alone.

  “Who told you that I was going to destroy the Earth?” he asks again.

  I don’t remember. I try. I want to tell him. I want him to be happy with me, but I don’t remember. It was a long time ago. It was before I left the compound.

  “Alex?” he prompts me. “Who told you?”

  And then I remember. It was me. The moment comes back. I remember being in bed with Cassandra. I remember it all. The person who told me was me, but it hasn’t happened yet.

  And it’s a witnessed future, which means I can’t die here.

  I’m going to leave this room. Cassandra is alive and she’s going to leave this compound. Later, a while from now, she and I will be convinced enough that the Gentry are evil that I’m going to sidetrack my own witnessing to warn myself.

  “I’m trying!” I tell him. “I’m trying to remember, but I can’t think. I don’t know anything at all.” I let the panic I’ve been trying to keep under wraps come out. I don’t have a plan yet, but I know I’m going to get out of this. I just need to change the situation so I can figure out what to do. “Can I have some water?”

  “You can have water when you tell me, Alex,” he replies.

  “I don’t want to tell you,” I say.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll hurt him.”

  “Hurt who?”

  “I need water.”

  “Tell me who, Alex.”

  Here goes nothing: “It was Richard!” I yell. I sell it hard.

  There’s a pause. Then: “Richard told you that I was going to destroy the world?”

  “Yes!” I cry. “Yes—Richard told me. He came to me the day before you called me to your office when I ran. I thought for sure that you knew about it and that was why you’d called me in. I needed to get out of there before Bishop saw it with the probe. The probe—that probe is . . .”

  “I don’t believe you, Alex.”

  “It’s true. It’s true. If you look in my mind you can see it.”

  “I can’t look in your mind, Alex,” he whispers. “That’s why I needed you in the first place. I’ll have to use the probe. Are you ready for me to use the probe? It won’t hurt if you just let it work.”

  “Can I hav
e something to drink first? And eat? And can I get clean?”

  He doesn’t reply at first. Then: “Of course.”

  There’s a noise behind me. I can’t turn around to see it, but I feel something tug at my arms. They’re brought behind me and I hear the metal before I feel the cuffs. There’s pressure on my neck near where the Live-Tech is attached, and then a jolt of electricity through me that makes me shudder.

  I can move again.

  “Stand up,” someone says behind me.

  I do. I’m weak. Everything hurts. Everything is stiff.

  “Turn around,” he says.

  I do. I don’t recognize him. Another guard. Not Alan, Nick, or Gordon.

  He shoves me through the door in front of him.

  Seventy-One

  The guard takes me down a hallway and through a door into another corridor, where he stops. “In there.”

  I nod and step inside, but stop. “The cuffs?”

  He steps behind me, unlocks them. I wonder if I can take him. I wonder if I can get him down and run, but I don’t know where I’d go.

  He closes the door behind me.

  It’s a small apartment. It’s got a little kitchen, a bathroom, and a sleeping area. In total, it’s the size of the bedroom in the trailer at Slab City, so I can barely move. There’s a pile of clothes on the bed and a cat carrier in the kitchen.

  Clean first. Then eat.

  Seventy-Two

  When I’m ready, I knock and the guard opens the door.

  He leads me farther down the hallway and inside an elevator. He hasn’t cuffed me again, so I debate whether to make a move or not, but I still don’t know where I am.

  He steps in after me and the door closes. I feel movement, but I can’t tell if it’s up or down. He didn’t press any buttons. When the doors open, things look different.

  Familiar.

  We’re in the Long Hall, just across from Bishop’s office.

  The wall across from us slides up, revealing the office door.

  Sabazios is behind the desk. “Come in, please.” He motions me toward one of the two leather chairs facing him. “Thanks, Jason,” he says. “Please wait in the hall.”

 

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