“We’re not high. I mean, not unless you cut the coffee with more than whiskey.”
“Black mold,” he said hopelessly.
I leaned against the concrete wall, feeling the coldness against the back of my head. “But I saw it, too. If we were both high, we’d have seen different things, right?”
He fell silent. I thought for a minute that he might cry, and I didn’t know what I’d do then. Instead he pinched the bridge of his nose for a bit, as if fighting back tears, then he said, “What did you see?”
“Shapes in the willows. In the gaps. Big shapes, going up and up. Gods.”
I don’t know why I said that last word, but once I said it, I didn’t regret it. It wasn’t quite the right word, but it was closer than anything else I had. The willows had been full of gods or ghosts or spirits. Something alive.
“Not human gods,” said Simon.
“No. Gods of this place, maybe. Or the willows, anyway.” The bunker didn’t seem to have much to do with those strange, stretching shapes.
“And the thing that came after them…?”
I spread my hands helplessly. “I don’t know.” The sudden appearance of the shadow in the willows and the vanishing of the spirits had reminded me of when my ex-husband used to fill the bird feeder in the yard. One minute the bushes would be full of twittering activity, then he’d step outside and the birds would all rush away and fall silent, waiting for the big scary thing to leave.
Pray they are hungry.
“What did you see?” I asked. “The second thing, I mean.”
He shook his head. “It was different. Bigger. Solid. Not here, but solid… somewhere.”
I tried to explain about the birds to Simon. Probably I babbled a lot. He shook his head, frustrated. “So is Them the willow spirits or the big thing? Or neither of them, and they meant the guy in the boat, or the… whatever that was on the bus… or something else we haven’t seen yet. How can we tell?”
I groaned. He wasn’t wrong.
Simon sighed. “If I had to guess, I didn’t feel like the spirits we saw were dangerous. I’m not suggesting we go roll around in the shrubbery, but I don’t think they had anything to do with us, really. It was more like the light was making them alive for a bit, and then it stopped. It felt like… oh, like weather. Like just a thing that’s here.”
“Weather?” I tried to focus on that thought. Yes. I could see it. The silvery light had been like wind, except instead of making shapes in the clouds, it had brought shapes in the branches to life. Then something had come along and the light had changed.
“What about the second thing?” I asked.
“I would not fuck with that thing.”
We sat in glum silence for a while. I wondered if dawn had progressed at all, but I didn’t feel like going up to check.
The silence was broken by a loud growl. I would have panicked, except that it came from my stomach.
I rummaged in my backpack, but I’d eaten the last PowerBar hours ago. Simon came up empty, too.
“We can make it a few days without food,” I said. “But we’re going to have to find water.”
“We’re surrounded by water.”
“Do you want to drink it?”
He grunted. After a minute he said, “Well, we might not have much choice.”
“Won’t we get the snail parasites?”
“Hell if I know. But I keep thinking about what they say about fairies, you know?”
“What?”
“If you eat or drink food from fairyland, you have to stay there forever.”
“I thought that was only pomegranates.”
“No, that’s Greek myths. Jeez, what are they teaching kids in schools these days?”
“You’re what, four years older than I am?”
“I’m forty-one.”
“Seven years, then. Apparently they phased fairyland survival out of the curriculum before I graduated.”
“Yeah, it’s all just standardized-test prep now.”
We both started giggling. It was hysteria, plain and simple, and it was only possible because the bolt was there. Out there, there were monsters, but in here, we were hilarious.
My stomach growled again. I wiped at my streaming eyes and sighed. “Well, if They can hear us thinking, at least They’re getting quality entertainment.”
“That’s the spirit. Imagine if we were thinking about spreadsheets or something.”
“Hey, my catalog is made of spreadsheets. Don’t you insult the noble spreadsheet.”
“Heaven forbid.” Simon’s stomach growled this time and he thumped it. “Oh, good, stereo. Do you think there’s any food in here?”
“We haven’t checked the footlockers, but I suspect anything in there would be spoiled by now.”
Simon turned off the flashlight and took out his phone, using the light of the screen to illuminate the footlockers. He opened the one at the foot of the bed and poked through it. “A sweater.” He pulled it out. “And a… oh my God!”
“What? What!?” I hitched back on the cot, away from him, picturing severed heads or bear traps or brain goblins lurking in the locker.
He pulled it out. By the light of the phone, I could see glossy pages and improbable skin tones. “It’s a porno magazine.”
“You have got to be shitting me.”
“Doesn’t matter what universe you’re in, guys are all the same.” He set it down at the foot of the bed. I leaned over and saw an improbably endowed woman covered in, for some reason, postage stamps. The headline informed me that it featured “Miss Brandy—Unwrapped!”
“And of course it’s a gay man and a straight woman who find it,” added Simon.
“You know, I was cold and was thinking I’d steal the sweater, but now I kinda don’t want to touch it.”
He went back to the footlocker. “Hmm, no cans, no… ha! Jackpot!” He pulled out a shiny foil pack.
“Jackpot?”
“This looks like an MRE.”
“A what-what?”
“MRE. Meals Ready to Eat. The military uses ’em. They keep forever.” He held it up for my inspection.
The front said FRR in large block letters, with FIELD READY RATION—INDIVIDUAL in smaller letters underneath, and MENU THREE: CHILI WITH BEANS under that. In very small print at the bottom, we were informed that the FRR was property of the UNA government and not for resale.
“UNA…,” I mused. “ ‘United Nations’? ‘Ugandan National Assembly’?” Where was that? Were we in it right now? Was Byricopa in the UNA?
Simon pulled out another FRR. “I don’t care if it’s the Union of Nasty Anarchists, it’s food. You want chili or cheese tortellini?”
“Tortellini.”
There was no silverware in the footlocker. If the former inhabitants had actually been military, presumably they had some kind of mess kit that traveled with them. Simon tore open the chili and squeezed it directly into his mouth. I did pretty much the same thing, grabbing each tortellini in my teeth.
“Mmmm, heat-stabilized food. Just like Mom used to make!”
“She did not.”
He grinned. “No, but it might have been an improvement. How’s yours?”
“I can’t decide if it’s good because I’m hungry or terrible because it’s terrible.”
“Both.”
We finished off the FRRs and then killed the last of the laced coffee. I was still thirsty—the FRR had been incredibly salty—but I didn’t much want to go up top and start drinking the water.
For lack of anything better to do, I picked up the porno magazine and flipped through it, looking for clues as to where the owners had been from. All the ads looked pretty much the same as ads in our world. Apparently people were looking for penis enhancers and cheap car insurance the universe over.
The interview with Miss Brandy listed her likes: long walks on the beach, cuddling, romantic movies; and her dislikes: mean people, traffic jams, people who put their shoes on the bed. It also
had her moon house, which was Hebridean, and her blood sign, Leaf. Assuming a moon house was like a horoscope, I could just about see that, but blood sign? Was that like blood type? I flipped back to the cover and peered at it.
“They’re fake,” said Simon, rummaging in another footlocker.
“Well, obviously. I’m looking at the stamps.”
The stamps adorning Miss Brandy’s anatomy said UNA—$4. This told me little, except that postage was expensive and apparently UNA was the name of the country.
I checked the table of contents. It would have been too much to hope for that there was an article about military spending on doors to another world. No, apparently it was going to be “Twelve Tips That Will Drive Her Wild” and “Eight Signs Your Girl Is Cheating.” I sighed and dropped it. “Anything useful in that locker?”
“Three more MREs. FRRs. Whatevers. Another sweater.”
“I’ll take the one that hasn’t been touching a porno magazine.”
He passed it over. It was olive drab and too big in the shoulders, but it was warm. “Stylish,” I said.
“Alternate-universe chic.”
“It’d have to be an alternate universe if I’m chic.”
Simon opened the footlocker at the bed with the rosary and whistled softly.
“What is it?”
“A Bible.” He held it out to me. I took it and began to flip through the table of contents, trying desperately to remember what books of the Bible I’d learned in Sunday school a million years ago, and whether these were the same ones. “Was there always a book of Judith?”
“Can’t remember. Didn’t she stab that one general?”
“Someone did. Um… Amos… Elijah… I think most of these are the same…. Oh, hmm, there’s a book of Sorrows, but I guess that’s the same as Lamentations? Oh! A book of Saul!”
“Guess he didn’t change his name on the road,” said Simon.
“And there’s like five books of Thessalonians. I guess they kept up with letters better in that world.” I hefted the small Bible in my hands, wondering how much of a stir I could make with it back home.
Probably nothing. Nobody’s going to believe where you got it, and they’ll just assume you made a weird forgery for your own amusement. Or worse, some people will believe it and you’ll wind up forming a cult or something. I had enough troubles at the moment without forming a cult. I tucked the Bible into my backpack. If we ever got home, it’d be a fun addition to the Wonder Museum. “Anything else?”
“Just this.” Simon brandished a clipboard at me. “It’s a log, I think?” He flipped the top page of the clipboard back into place. “ ‘Day one. Entered the vacuae with gear. Secured campsite in abandoned fortification. Transferred gear to it.’ ”
“Wait, what?” That didn’t sound as if this was a military installation. “Do you think we’re in that abandoned fortification?”
“Seems likely. There’s a lot more, but it’s all acronyms. What’s a vacuae?”
“No idea. Something to do with vacuum, maybe?”
“Or another acronym.” Simon turned the page. “ ‘Day two. Reconnaissance of surrounding area… Day three. Duty Roster as follows: Steen, Petrov, Marco, Chang…’ More acronyms. Day four is alphabet soup… huh.”
“Huh?”
“Day five is blank. So’s all the rest.”
“Do you think they left after day five?”
“Or they stopped bothering to write things down.”
Neither of us made the obvious suggestion, but I’m fairly sure we were both thinking it. Had something happened on day five? Something like whatever had happened to the kids on the school bus?
Had one of them written Pray They Are Hungry as he left?
I groaned. When you find some kind of journal in a strange alternate universe, it’s supposed to have helpful information that explains what the hell is going on, and maybe how to stop it. Instead, what do we get? A bunch of military acronyms, a Bible, and a porno magazine.
Well, at least there had been food and sweaters. Probably I was being ungrateful.
“This proves it, though,” said Simon.
“Proves what?”
“That there’s more than two universes. I’ll bet you they came through the vacu-whatever the way that we came through the hole in ours. They weren’t from here either.”
I grimaced. Somehow more worlds seemed worse than just one extra. I wanted to say that we didn’t know the vacuae had involved another universe. Maybe they’d just gotten an airlift and vacuae was their word for “helicopter.” But whatever Simon saw with his dead twin’s eye had prompted him to guess there was more than one world here, and who was I to argue with a dead woman in my friend’s head?
“Well, they definitely didn’t build this place,” I admitted. “Not if they’re calling it an ‘abandoned fortification.’ ”
I didn’t want there to be more worlds. If there were more, then if we found a hole other than the one we entered by, we might not get home. We’d end up somewhere farther away.
You already suspect there are, though. You kept thinking of the Wood between the Worlds.
“…Shit,” I muttered. Fortunately Simon took this as a general comment, not a conversation starter.
“I’m going to try to get some more sleep,” he said. He switched off his light, plunging the room into darkness.
“Sounds like the best idea.” I set the porno mag down on the floor and slid back under the covers. Behind my eyelids, inhuman shapes in silver and amber flowed and joined together, like amoebas made of smoke and willow, until sleep trampled through and set them all to flight.
CHAPTER 11
I woke to a sound of liquid hitting a bucket, which I correctly interpreted as Simon using the facilities. I waited until he was done before saying, “Is it morning?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve only been up a few minutes. I didn’t want to check without you.”
“No, of course not.” I got up, yawning, and raked my fingers through my hair. My teeth felt as if things were growing on them, but there wasn’t a lot that we could do about that now.
We crept up the steps, blinking in the sunlight. It was well past dawn now, which seemed odd. Had we slept that late? We couldn’t have spent that long poring over the Bible and eating heat-stabilized food, could we?
Well, maybe we could. In the dark, with no sense of time, who even knew anymore? Or maybe time moved jaggedly in this world, or the sun didn’t rise until the willows were ready for it.
The killdeer cried far away and light glinted on the surface of the water as it flowed past. No one was visible. I didn’t see any boatmen, and the willows looked as they always looked, empty of gods or ghosts or monsters. Had it been just a phenomenon of the silver light? Like an aurora that turned things alive, then went away again?
It seemed utterly nonsensical, but at this point, what wasn’t?
I turned my head quickly after we stepped out, checking for things perched on top of the bunker’s doorway. I had a nebulous idea of monsters with huge claws lurking, waiting to drop on us as soon as we showed our heads, like a cat at a mousehole. Or maybe it wouldn’t be anything so obvious as claws, maybe it would be a beast made of willow leaves….
Nothing. The willows on top of the island hissed and rustled in the wind, but the gaps made no coherent shapes.
Simon was peering up at the willows with a puzzled expression.
“Something wrong?” I asked. “Or… well… more wrong?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t remember there being willows here. I thought this was one of the grassy islands.”
I frowned. “Now that you mention it…”
“It was dark last night,” he said with a false attempt at cheer. “And we were getting pretty frazzled. We probably just didn’t pay any attention.”
“That’s probably it.” I don’t think either of us believed that for a second, but if we had to face that the willows might be moving around independently,
then we had to face all kinds of things, and it was too early and I was thirsty.
“I’m going to drink the water,” I said.
“You sure about that?”
“No, but I don’t know what other choice I have.”
He looked as if he was going to argue, then nodded instead. “If you will, I will.”
“Suicide pact?”
“Something like that.”
We dipped our hands in the river. It was cold, and it moved like water and dripped off my fingers like water.
“Salut,” he said, and we drank from our cupped hands.
It tasted vaguely of algae. As soon as I drank it, my thirst came roaring back. Well, if I was going to get giardia or liver snails, the first sip was probably as fatal as the last. I drank until I wasn’t thirsty anymore, while the killdeer sobbed in the distance.
“Do you hear that?” asked Simon abruptly, cocking his head.
“Hear what?” I listened. I could hear the lap of water against the tiny island. The wind had died down, so the willows were not making their awful rustling chatter for once. “I don’t hear…”
And then I stopped, because I did hear something, or I had been hearing something and now I wasn’t. It was a distant, almost electronic noise, like a hum. I pulled out my phone, but it was silent and nearly out of battery in any event. “I heard something?”
We listened, heads cocked to the side like that dog in the phonograph ad. I had nearly given up when I heard it again. It sounded almost like a gong, only without the percussion of its being struck, just the humming aftermath as the note died away. Like a finger dragged over a wineglass, perhaps, but a fraction deeper.
I couldn’t even begin to figure out where it was coming from. “Is it the wind?” I asked. “Maybe blowing through something?”
“There’s less wind than there was. I’d think it would have been louder last night if it was blowing.” He frowned. “Sounds almost like one of those Tibetan singing-bowl things. You run the little copper stick around and it makes a noise?”
I nodded. The Wonder Museum had one, of course, although I expect it was made in Mexico.
“Where’s it coming from?” I turned my head to try to orient on the sound.
The Hollow Places Page 10
