by S E Anderson
Zander tilted his head and looked at the pit below. When he turned his head back to us, he was stoic and stern.
“I'll be back, I promise,” he said, offering a hint of a smile. “We'll take a well-needed vacation. All four of us. Absolutely anywhere. All right?”
“You've got a deal.” My reply was slow, and it was determined. “Be safe down there.”
“Hate to be a bummer,” Matt piped up, his voice shaken and unsteady, “but how are we meant to get back to the surface? Elevator's bust, last I checked.”
“Bust? I didn’t bust it, just … forced it a bit. Grand theft elevator. I’m not dumb enough to bring you down here without a way out. Here, take this.” Blayde grabbed my hand and pressed a cool, metal tube against my skin. The laser pointer. “Sever the blue wire. That'll recall the elevator to the ground floor. Once you get up there, run for it. I’ll give you ten minutes, more or less.”
“Is it more, or is it less?” Matt sputtered.
“Just get out quickly,” Blayde urged. “Zander, take this as proof that I'll keep my word. I'll be back for the laser, and if you lose it, Sally, or damage it, or if it's anything less than in the perfect condition it is in now, I will strip the flesh from your bones. All right?”
I nodded. I had no doubt Blayde would make good on that threat.
“Great,” Zander, with me. We'll see you two soon. Now, run.”
And with that, she darted to the railing overlooking the pit, grabbed it with both hands, and flung herself into the abyss. Zander followed suit, pausing to toss me a salute, before flinging himself into the chasm.
“What the hell is happening today?” Matt's hands flew to his head, clasping it in a vice-like grip.
“Pretend it's a dream,” I offered, clutching the laser pointer to my chest. “We'll wake up tomorrow, and everything will be as it should.”
“No aliens and bosses bent on world domination,” he muttered. “Oh, god, I killed—”
“Let's get out of here.” I grabbed his hand and rushed for the door. “We need to focus. Keep our minds off … that.”
“So, um,” he said, as we walked, squeezing my hand tighter, “am I to understand that all those times you were being all, I dunno, shifty, it was because—”
“We were off saving the planet,” I replied. “Or something like that. And once because an alien was chilling in my living room.”
“Something like saving the planet?” Matt shook his head. “That's pretty impressive.”
He didn't know what had hit him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I Get My Final Boss Fight
Matt hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, letting out a pained gasp of air.
My hand still clasped his, and I was flung across the grated floor landing face first on the cold metal. The pointer flew out of my hand, rolling across the grate. I tried to push myself back up, my eyes finally seeing the creature that had knocked Matt down.
My neck strained to pull my head up high enough to see. Just five feet away were large, red things. They were so thin they resembled stilts, except there were six, no eight, no ten crablike appendages.
Holy crap, Grisham was a crab.
I was stunned. The man hadn't been a man at all, at least, not in the sense I was used to. His face looked the same, though the glasses were gone, and if you ignored the bashed in part of his head where the red shell seemed to seep out. The torso was still clothed in a suit, but it was ripped in places. I doubted it was an entirely human chest to begin with.
Everything from his waist down was legs and sharp-edged shell, red and orange like a perfectly cooked lobster’s, larger than life, clammy and glistening. The legs, if they were indeed legs, must have been hidden inside the scooter, though I could not think how. Their sheer bulk was much larger than the small vehicle.
How had they been folded in there? How had they fit? Wouldn't that have been incredibly painful?
As I took in all this, my mind reeled at the shock of discovering that my former boss—who not only was an alien but much more of an alien than I previously assumed—was somehow still alive. I realized I had frozen, and that Matt was still in danger.
Ignoring the pain, or pushing past it, I couldn't really tell, I pulled myself to my feet. Everything shook, but the rush of adrenaline kicked in and steadied me. I lunged at Grisham, grabbing him around his torso.
What this was meant to accomplish, I wasn't exactly sure, but it still failed dramatically. Grisham did not seem bothered in the slightest, though it distracted him long enough for Matt to roll out the way. I banged on the creature's head, not waiting to think, simply attacking with all I had.
“Die, you scum,” I shouted, then, realizing how useless that sounded, I began to screech in Grisham's ear. That would annoy pretty much anyone.
Except it wasn't an ear, so it didn't do anything.
Grisham swung his shoulders, tossing me from his back, and I crashed to the grated floor once again. My mind spun as I felt the shock of the fall, my stomach turning as I saw the chasm bellow. There was light down there, and movement.
Instantly, the memory of New York was back. I began to choke.
But time was not our friend. We had to go. And we had to go now.
One of Grisham’s feet came down with a rattle next to my ear, and I rolled over to see Grisham right above me leering with his half-human face. A skin wrap, much like Miko’s, flaked, revealing more of that bright red shell and an eye the color of charcoal. He raised a foot again, bringing it down on my other side, close enough to make it look as if he had intended to squash me.
“You cost me everything! You brought them here, to my plant, after everything I did for you!”
I rolled to the side, reaching to drag myself away from the creature, but one of his many legs grabbed my shirt collar, dragging me toward him. There was nowhere for me to crawl.
“It’s going to blow!” I shouted, trying to call Grisham to reason, but a grin spread across his face, his joy growing from the terror in mine. I rolled again, trying to avoid his attack, aware he was toying with me like a cat about to kill a mouse.
“I wasn't lying,” he hissed. “I see great things in you, Sally: time itself warps around you. You’re a turning point in this universe, but you're wasting your talents. And if I can't have you—no one will.”
In a sudden spur of madness, I shoved forward, pushing myself under Grisham's many legs, and kicked the soft spot in his undercarriage. He let out a scream, legs folding and cringing, giving me the precious seconds I needed to dash from his reach.
But not long enough.
A claw grabbed my shirt, tearing the fabric. He shoved me under the rail, my hair dangling into the chasm, my neck straining to keep my head from falling back into the void.
His face was so red it was almost purple, as if he was steaming in his shell. He held the sharp end of one of his legs above my neck, so close that I could feel it when I breathed. I sucked in a breath.
“Goodbye, Sally Webber,” Grisham said with a grimace on his face. “Oh, did I mention that you're fired?”
The world darkened. I struggled to breathe, and my breath was raspy as it burned my lungs. My eyes flickered, and I could see stars, beautiful stars.
A scream pierced the stagnant air, filling it with the sound of agonized pain. Grisham's face turned as something flew forward, grabbing him around the neck, and sailed over the railing. The momentum dragged the beast over the edge, and the screaming red mass tumbled after the dark blur.
I pulled myself up, coughing as I tried to breathe again. My neck ached, and my hands were clammy as I watched Grisham fall through the earth. I felt no remorse.
Which was when I realized what the dark blur had been.
“Matt!” I reached for him, but it was too late.
I didn't realize how hard I clutched the railing until I lost the feeling in my fingertips. I didn't care about that. My eyes watered as I tried to make out the forms in the bottom of the pit, but it
was too low and too dark to discern anything.
But I knew.
I knew.
With a sound like rolling thunder, the ground erupted into a blossom of red. The explosion shook the room, dislodging stones from the cavern roof. It crashed into the grate, drowning all sounds.
The rumbling burst in my ears as petals of fire stretched and grew, reaching up. Instinct kicked in, forcing me to turn and run for the door. I had to get out, get into that safe, re-enforced room before the flames reached me.
The pointer.
Blayde was going to kill me. I turned back to the carnage, grabbed the tiny metal rod, and ran for the room as flames licked my feet. The world crumbled around me as I propelled myself through the open door.
* * *
I watched as a body was carried out of the still-crumbling building.
My co-workers had rushed across the street when the plant started to sink and shake. I stood beside them, although no one seemed to notice I was there. Actually, I wasn't all that sure how I had gotten out.
Everyone shook their heads in confusion. Some blinked, staring at their hands like they had woken from a dream, but most watched the building crumble and sink. Some called loved ones to let them know they were safe.
The woman in the fireman's arms didn't look much like a woman anymore. The parts that her tattered clothes didn't cover revealed burns worse than I'd ever seen. She barely looked human. I felt sorry for her. I wondered which of the co-workers she had been.
I felt dead inside.
I climbed into the ambulance with the injured woman, overcome with an urge to keep an eye on her. No one noticed in the controlled panic of trying to save this woman's life. They shouted words I could not recognize, pumping the woman full of things I had never seen before.
She was taken to the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit after her surgery, where she was hooked up to more machines. I sat by her bed, watching and waiting, praying for the stranger's survival with a need I had never felt before.
It was almost midnight when her family finally showed up. I heard them before I saw them, and my heart sank when I realized that I knew those voices. I recognized the footsteps, too. I wanted my gut to be wrong, for the people walking into the small room to be strangers.
But they weren’t. They were my parents—my mom, my dad. And the look on their faces mirrored those I had seen two years previously.
The same sorrow as when John had died.
I sat on the roof of the hospital that night, trying to cool myself off, rid myself of the terror of that realization. I wasn't sure what it all meant. What was I, if the stranger in the bed was me? Was I a ghost? A memory? Was this what death felt like? If it was, then where was Matt?
Matt, who had no remains to retrieve.
Matt, who had taken Grisham down single-handedly.
I had never understood self-sacrifice, although I hadn't given it much thought until now. I had never pondered what it would be like to be dead, either. Now I wondered how it was possible for me to feel so torn. So amazed by his last action in this world, yet so broken by his death.
The stars were glorious, but they filled me with sorrow. I wondered where Zander was, if he would hold true to his promise and come back for me? How would he react when he knew I was dying—dead? How would he react to Matt's death?
What were we to an immortal, anyway? Maybe he was used to his friends dying around him. Maybe we weren’t really friends to begin with. I wasn't sure what I was to him, anyway.
Or what I could do about any of it.
At that moment, I was confused about my own existence.
I mean, duh, lots of questions go through one's mind when in limbo, and I couldn’t imagine what else this could be. The body downstairs wasn't dead, not yet, but I was vagabonding around as an invisible … something. All of this made me quite tired and hungry, so I tried to put the thoughts out of my mind.
Could I eat or sleep like this? Dammit.
I pondered many things in this state. I remembered the feeling I’d had before Zander left, of feeling so alive; that life had only just begun. Why then, had it been ripped away from me so soon? I wanted to be angry but found myself being sad instead.
I left the roof and returned to my body. My parents had left the bedside and were now in the doctor's office discussing options I didn't want to hear. I had a good idea of what was being said anyway.
The body in the bed didn't even look like me. Maybe it wasn't me, seeing as I was really, well … here.
“It's been nice,” I said to myself, knowing no one could hear. “It's been nice being you.”
I sat down in the chair in the corner. Not that I needed to sit, but I wanted to feel normal. That hadn't been an option for me for a while now.
So, I sat there for a while. For several days, actually. My parents came in, came out, and said words I pretended not to hear. It was only a matter of time, after all. Soon they would have no children at all, and there wasn't anything I could do about it.
I would see my brother again soon. The thought thrilled me, if just a little bit. During the days and nights where I had been at my worst, unable to move from my bed or my couch and my body and mind were at odds with each other, I had wished for nothing else than a permanent end to the pain. To leave this all behind, to join John in whatever existence you had after this one.
Anything would have been better than this.
During days when I felt better, I was disgusted with myself for those thoughts. Even if they weren’t true, I had still considered them. My sick, sick brain. Medicine and therapy helped, but it was difficult to be honest with a stranger when you couldn’t even be honest with yourself.
If I was being honest, though, I couldn’t remember ever feeling as good as I had these past months. Maybe we had finally found my perfect dosage. And then, right when I was beginning to recover—if there even was a point, for me, where that was possible—I get blown up by my roommate.
I weighed up who I would rather see right now—my brother, or Zander? But wasn’t that irrational too? My mind was giving me a choice that made no actual sense. John was gone, in a different way than Zander ever would be. While I missed John—and I missed him so, so much—I realized that I wasn’t ready to join my brother just yet.
I liked being alive. No matter what my sick brain said. I liked my life. There was so much out there to see, to discover, to explore.
And Zander had promised to show it to me.
I smiled at my memories of John. I would see him again, one day, but not like this. Not yet. I was used to fighting myself to stay alive—what was one more fight?
So, I sat and I waited. And I stayed where I was. Then, one night, after all the lights had gone down, after silence became the ruler of its own tiny world, he was there.
He didn't use a door. No one had seen him come in, and no one would see him leave. He simply was.
I didn’t recognize his clothes, the purest of white from head to toe, his head hooded like a monk. Dried blood stained his right sleeve.
He flipped down the hood, muttering that he didn't remember putting it up. I recognized the hair, and reality crashed down on me. This was real. No matter what this looked like, how surreal it felt, I knew this was no trick or illusion.
“Zander …” I said, slowly, which of course, he couldn't hear.
Who knew how long it had been at his end. I didn't care. He was here, and the look on his face was evident: he was terrified.
“Oh, Sally.” He strode to my side, reaching a hand out for mine, then snapped it back before touching my body, realizing the folly in the gesture. This only seemed to sadden him more.
Of course, the girl in the bed did not, could not, answer. She hadn't answered anyone in a while now.
“It's me,” he said as if this would rouse her from sleep. The silence between his words was heavy, broken only by the slow bleeps of the machines in the room and the raspy sound of air being forced into Sally's lungs with a tube.
<
br /> “Sally, it's good to see you,” he continued, awkwardly. He pulled a chair up to the bedside. “How are you doing? Yeah, I see that. I'm really sorry I couldn't come back sooner. You'll know what I mean. Or maybe not. This probably won't mean anything to you, and I'm not sure you'll even remember this meeting. You've been very vague, after all. But I had to come and help. Though I'm not sure if this is the help you need.”
He reached over to brush a strand of hair out of her—my—face. It was one of the last strands she had, yet it refused to stay off her nose. Just my luck.
“I promised I would come back. And I will. But not yet.” He smiled. “Soon, though. Blayde and I are with the Killians right now, if I remember correctly. They treated us like heroes when we took their people back. Seems as though some of the people under the plant were quite important. We're going to be back soon enough, and when we are, Sally, you'd better be alive, d’you hear me? You’d better be alive.”
He picked up her hand delicately, holding it for a while, without saying a word. I watched from my chair, distant, unsure of what exactly was happening. What he was saying made no sense. I tried my best to understand, but his words escaped me, no matter how hard I tried to grasp them.
“So, I'm going to put a guarantee on this,” he said slowly, rising to his feet, gently placing her arm back on the bed. He pulled a syringe from his pocket—a sleek, tiny thing—and plunged the needle into a vein in his tightened bicep. The chamber filled with thick blood.
“I'm coming back for you, Sally Webber,” he promised, taking the tube with her IV and finding the right place for the syringe. Once emptied, he slipped it back into his pocket. “I'm already sorry for the wait.”
My arm tingled.
I was feeling it. And it felt weird.
I watched as Zander faded out of existence, gone in a literal blink of the eye. I watched as my body began to twitch and spasm on the bed. And I felt, somehow, as though warm syrup spread through me. The warmth grew to a boil, to a burn, and I felt my entire self consumed by flames.
