Tether

by Jeremy Robinson

  We file into the tall terminal, its old wooden, pew-like benches all empty. The Dunkin’ Donuts is dark. The schedule of incoming and outgoing trains is empty. For a moment, I’m struck by a powerful sense of loss, of life once vibrant now missing.

  Then I remember the true source of this emotion.

  My wife is dead.

  I’m sure of it now.

  In all the insanity that’s taken place since her phone call, I haven’t had a lot of time to process. Haven’t had a lot of time to even think. Or feel. And as much as it sickens me to say it, I’ve almost forgotten the fresh wound of her passing.

  Almost.

  Rain’s presence is a persistent reminder of my wife’s fate.

  “Are there any trains?” I ask, as Reggie presses her face against the glass door leading out to the train platforms.

  “Trains, yes.” Reggie looks back, sullen. “Keys, conductors, or the knowledge to operate a five-hundred-ton locomotive? I’m afraid not.”

  A wall of people pushes up against the glass doors, looking for salvation like believers gathered for an Easter service at Vatican City. I slide my way to the left, moving down the line of parked trains.

  And then I see it.

  A light.

  It’s at the far end of Track 8. A Boston T commuter train, the gray body and purple stripe are easy to recognize. I find the lock, give it a twist, and force the doors open. Then I’m outside and running like I’ve got a Pamplonian bull charging behind me.

  The train is long. Nine cars. Easily enough to carry us all, but is someone here, or did a conductor accidentally leave a light on?

  I’m out of breath by the time I reach the engine. The steady glow illuminates the conductor’s cabin. I mount the stairs, peer through the small window at the top, and peek inside. It’s hard to see, but I think there’s someone inside, seated, head lolled back, earphones on.

  I pound on the door. “Hey!”

  No response. Not even a flinch.

  Is he dead? Did he witness the events in Cambridge, fear the end was nigh, and have a heart attack?

  I pound again, this time hard enough to wake the dead.

  Still nothing.

  People are starting to force their way onto the train, having faith that I’ll get the thing moving in time to save their lives.

  The moment it takes to look back at the train is all it takes for me to notice Brute again, looming up over North Station, still pressing forward despite the tangle of Wisp still tightening its grasp. The two giants are in a battle, but it seems more like a battle of wills, Brute wanting to catch us, Wisp attempting to prevent it.

  “Running out of time!” Rain says, her face flickering with light. Her expression is hard to see, but easy to read. Whatever turmoil is being projected by the giants is reaching a climax that only she can feel.

  I reach back my fist, ready to pound my way through the glass. I’m pretty sure I’ll break my hand instead of the window, but I have to try. Before I can swing, Brute plants its big fist inside the Garden, pounding the ground hard enough to send a quake through the entire train.

  The man inside stirs.

  I pound on the glass with both fists. “Hey! Hey! Wake up!”

  The train shakes again. Brute closing in.

  “HEY!” I scream, and I manage to put a crack in the glass.

  The man twists around, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He pulls a fancy noise-blocking headset away from his ears. Inside the train’s insulated interior, with sound-blocking earphones, he might have slept through the last few hours of drama.

  Confusion gives way to anger, when the man sees the cracked window. He picks up a wrench and heads toward me. I back away, descending the stairs. He opens the door and steps out into the night with all of Brute’s rage, but none of its size. The gray-haired, mustached conductor is still in uniform, ready to fight in defense of his train.

  But he never manages to shout an expletive or ask for an explanation. His eyes move from me, to Rain, to North Station and then up…up…up…

  “What…da…fuck?”

  “We need to go,” I shout. “Now!”

  The old man has trouble pulling his attention away from the skyscraper-sized WWE match coming our way, but he manages for a moment. Looks me in the eyes. Then back to Rain.

  “The man said, now!” Reggie shouts, stepping up and shoving the conductor back inside his train. “Move, move, move!”

  As the rest of our followers enter the train through a pried-open door, I follow Rain inside the engine. Reggie takes the seat beside the conductor. “Full speed ahead! Engage! Whatever you have to do to get this thing moving, now, do it!”

  The conductor, freed from the spell of seeing real-life kaiju—giant monsters like Nemesis or Godzilla—slipping in and out of reality, is already hard at work attempting to preserve his life. The train powers up. The engine rumbles to life. The conductor looks back. “This is a big train. If you can uncouple the cars—”

  “There are people on board,” I tell him.

  For a moment, I think he’s going to ask me to do it anyway. Then he just frowns and starts the train forward. We accelerate at a cringe-inducing pace. Right now, I could outrun the train on foot.

  A vibration rolls through the ground and the train. I hold on to a grab bar and catch Rain as she loses her balance. But I don’t think it was the jolt that knocked her over. She’s cringing, overwhelmed by the intensity of what she’s experiencing.

  “It’s here…” she says.

  “No shit,” I say.

  “…for me.” She looks me in the eyes, and I immediately understand her intention. Since Brute laid its eyes on me, I’ve wrongly assumed it was here for me. But that egotistical view is shattered by the realization that those giant eyes weren’t looking at me, but at the person by my side.

  “No,” I say, blocking her path to the side door. As noble as it might be to sacrifice her life to save all these people, I still need answers, and she’s the only one who might have them. I’m not only egotistical, I’m also selfish, and right now, tonight, I don’t give a shit. “No way.”

  I relax when she backs away, and I realize too late that instead of forcing her way past me, she’s retreating to the back door connecting us to the other cars. When I catch her by the arm, she spins around and delivers a punch to my solar plexus, knocking the air from my lungs, and slamming my body to the floor.

  By the time I look up, she’s gone.

  17

  “No matter what,” I tell Reggie, “you keep this train moving.”

  She saw Rain exit. She knows I’m going after her. The look in Reggie’s eyes says she’s willing to stop the train to help us, but no one here deserves to share in the fate Rain has planned for herself.

  “Don’t worry, buddy,” the conductor says. “I ain’t stopping for nothing or no one.”

  “Be careful,” Reggie says, and then I’m out the door, headed back through the train. Between the engine and the first car, surrounded by the unmuted sound of the churning locomotive and the haunting cries of both Brute and Wisp, I’m struck by the visceral stupidity of what I’m about to do.

  But I can’t let Rain die. Not until I have answers, and probably not after that, either. I don’t know her well—how can you really know someone who doesn’t know themselves? But our brief relationship has been forged in a hellish heat. She is a stranger. And a friend.

  I turn to the exit door. When I find it unlocked, I know this is the path she took. Rain’s a small woman, but she’s athletic in a way I’ve never been. If there isn’t a ladder leading up to the roof, I’m afraid I’ll never reach her.

  I lean out into the warm night, choking on the engine’s exhaust. There’s no ladder, and when I look up into the sky behind us, I realize there’s no time.

  “Faster,” I will the train. “Faster!”

  While there isn’t a ladder, there are two vertical grab bars on either side of the door. I can visualize how a gymnast might make the clim
b in seconds, but when I try to insert myself into the fantasy, I see myself falling to the tracks and getting run over. I know the physics of my imaginary death don’t work. I’d fall away from the train. But physics don’t matter when conjuring images of your own demise.

  This is why sleep eludes me.

  Don’t be fancy, I tell myself. I’m strong enough to lift my own weight. But stamina isn’t my strong suit…and I’m already exhausted from running, and the knock to my head, repeated adrenaline peaks and valleys, and from still having Ambien in my system…but well, screw it.

  I grip the twin grab bars, plant a foot on the side of the door and monkey my way up, all while pretending there isn’t a pair of translucent kaiju careening toward us. My feet have no trouble sticking to the rubber door seal, and the bars extend nearly all the way to the roof.

  Nearly.

  To finish the climb, I need to really Spider-Man this. I slap a hand on the train’s smooth roof, extending my fingers and hoping that friction alone will support my weight. One hand up, I think. And now… I fling my left hand up and over onto the roof, doing my best chameleon impression. But my palms are growing sweaty. I start to skitter-slide back.

  In a very not-heroic looking last-ditch effort, I fling my upper torso on the roof, letting the whole of my body, and its weighty dad-bod pudge, hold me in place. Hands extended again, I swing my legs up, roll to the center of the train’s roof and catch my breath.

  I smell the ocean, the city, the train, and fresh ozone.

  The last in that collection of odors pulls my eyes open.

  “Shit!” I shout upon seeing Brute. It’s right behind us. If not for the still-clinging Wisp, it would have caught us by now.

  The Garden fades in the distance behind us, a smoking ruin that matches a swath of Boston’s North End. How many people died tonight? For a moment, my own grief feels selfish.

  Sitting in a train is often a bumpy experience. Standing atop one as it accelerates and follows the path of aging tracks feels more like surfing through choppy seas. Hands extended, legs splayed wide, I find my equilibrium. Only then do I see Rain.

  She’s standing at the end of the train. Her glowing arms are spread to the sky. Her blonde hair snaps in the wind, creating a strobe effect from her luminous head. She’s glowing brighter than ever. No longer a beacon, but a sacrifice.

  Are they gods? I wonder, looking up at the clashing titans.

  Are we witnessing an actual End of Days, not envisioned by the prophets of any religion?

  Brute’s many eyes are locked on Rain.

  The monster becomes desperate.

  Frantic.

  Its pulsing muscles strain against Wisp’s coils.

  And then, Brute loses its patience.

  A loud buzzing fills the air, like an arc of electricity. Veins of bright light flow upward, exposing more and more of the creature’s body, its gaping torso-mouth, its flowing hair, bulbous eyes, and its long, emaciated, sharply-bent back legs. If this thing stood on its hind legs, it would be at least a thousand feet tall!

  But that’s not what it does. All that flowing light cascades through Brute’s body. An internal lightning storm. And then it flows back down to its two-fingered fists, which it lifts off the ground and slams back down.

  In a flash, all that energy is released.

  The brightness of it forces my eyes shut for a moment. When I look again, Wisp has been knocked away, its massive body spilling across I-93, blocking the fastest northbound escape route from a burning city.

  But Brute… It’s gone.

  I race down the line of cars, leaping from one to the next like a bona-fide action hero. I nearly fall off twice, when the speeding train takes a long right turn—probably a lot faster than it’s supposed to. I think the max allowed speed for a commuter train is 80 mph—if it’s in a straight, unpopulated area. The train’s actual top speed is probably double that, but I don’t think we can achieve that speed without hopping the tracks. The path through and out of the city is winding.

  “Rain!” I shout, as I leap to the final car.

  She’s still glowing with the brightness of a white dwarf star trapped inside a person. But the space behind her is empty now, and Wisp is fading into the distance—and out of existence.

  “Rain, we’re clear!” I shout at her, my voice whisked away with the wind. I put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Come inside!”

  She turns to face me, hair snapping around her face, so bright it hurts. “It’s not gone! You have to leave! Let me do this!”

  “You’re not making sense!” I shout.

  “It wants me!” she shouts. “I can feel it!”

  “You can control it. The brightness. Turn it down! Let it go!”

  She falls to her knees. “But it hurts!”

  I hadn’t stopped to consider that whatever is making her glow might also be burning her, but I don’t think that’s what she’s talking about.

  “It hurts!” she shouts again, but her voice is deeper now. Rumbling. Not her own.

  “Let me go!” she shouts at me. “It won’t stop until I—”

  I take her hand, holding tight, like she did mine when she dragged me out of the city. “Neither will I!” And I mean it. What do I have to lose? “It takes us both, or neither of us.”

  She stares at me, an angelic being of pure light.

  For a moment, I think this impossible person must exist for some divine purpose.

  Then she says, “Both of us, then.”

  Brute flickers back into view as Rain’s illumination flares brighter. Moving on all fours and not slowed by the inner-city buildings, the monster matches the train’s pace. While it doesn’t have a head, per se, its collection of eyes lean forward, shimmering with transparent brightness. Toothless chest-mouth open and ready to receive, its long, flowing hair stretches toward us, like hungry, electric whips.

  I put an arm around Rain, consigned to my fate, and I lean my forehead against hers.

  The moment of connection propels me into a memory.

  George’s Island off the coast of Boston. During a tour of the ancient fort there, Morgan and I snuck away, exploring the deep and dank tunnels running beneath the island. Upon resurfacing, we claimed to have been lost in the dark. Twenty years ago, in the days before cell phones, that might have been believable. Our guide knew better, as did every other person in the tour group, sheepishly smiling at the young couple who’d snuck off into the dark.

  Do you think they ‘did’ it? I overheard a teenage boy ask a friend.

  Hell yeah, we did. I didn’t say that. Pretended not to hear the question. Pretended like everything was normal, though I couldn’t hide my smile. It was one of my happiest days, and for a flash, I feel it again like I was there.

  Rain gasps, snapping back from me, her pale blue eyes no longer awash with light.

  She felt it, too. The memory. The love. And now she feels the loss.

  Tendrils wriggle just a few feet away, reaching.

  “I’m sorry,” Rain says, then crushes herself inward like she’s trying to contain the universe itself.

  Her brightness dims.

  Brute roars.

  Rain screams.

  Massive hands reach, as Brute fades out of existence.

  I duck down in a self-protective orb, as the hands clasp shut around us. A sudden chill passes through me, but that’s all. When I look up, all that remains of the kaiju is a twirling light-blue mist that twinkles out of sight.

  The train takes a turn far too fast. The car actually tips to the side for a moment, nearly flinging us clear.

  “You okay?” I ask Rain.

  She looks up, clearly not okay, but she nods anyway. I help her to her feet and we walk to the nearest door with grab bars. Rain helps me slide down, hovering on the side of the train like a tree frog, blasted by wind. Perched in place, I knock on the door.

  A wide-eyed woman appears on the far side. After a stunned moment, she unlocks the door and yanks it open. I sli
p inside, stumble to the floor, and by the time I turn around, Rain is there, too, closing the door behind her. “How… Never mind.”

  I push myself up and lead the way back toward the front of the train, passing seats full of people watching Rain and me, like we’re Greek gods reborn on Earth. Rain, I understand; but me? I’m just a broken man.

  When we reach the engine, Reggie leaps up from her seat and embraces me. It’s an awkward hug, mostly because Reggie is not fond of displaying affection, and I know that. It makes me as uncomfortable receiving it as it does her giving it. But the message is received: she’s thrilled that I’m alive.

  “You can stop,” I tell the conductor. “It’s gone.” I turn to Rain, “It is gone?”

  “I—I think.”

  “Keep going, Chuck,” Reggie says, and then motions to the old man. “That’s Chuck.”

  “I figured,” I say. “Where are we going?”

  “Salem,” she says. “To see a friend. He might be able to help.”

  I’ve met a lot of Reggie’s friends in the past. They’re all nerdy types with doctorates, labs, grants, and research papers. “What kind of scientist can help with—”

  “He’s not just a scientist,” she says, and then she looks disappointed in herself for revealing it. “Don’t tell him. Have to. He’s not going to like it. Doesn’t matter.” She gives me a smile that says, ‘Thanks for ignoring my multiple personalities,’ and then says aloud, “He’s a Warlock.”

  18

  What the hell are we doing? I think to myself for the hundredth time in the past hour. The world is coming undone. Morgan is gone. Boston is in ruins. And giant kaiju-ghost things are responsible, maybe for all of it. I didn’t see a kaiju in Cambridge, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there before I woke up.

  Maybe the monsters were after Rain all along?

  Maybe SpecTek was protecting her?

  It feels like false hope. In my gut, I know it’s not true. But I hope it’s true.

  Early morning in Salem should be full of commuters, but word of last night’s devastation has spread. The streets are mostly empty. Salem is close enough to Boston that some residents probably saw the light show. Might have even heard distant explosions, or roars. But those who slept through it have seen the news by now. Probably huddled around TVs and refreshing news sites, waiting for the latest update. Hell, Nepalese Sherpas on Mt. Everest have probably heard the news by now: monsters are real, huge, and capable of destroying cities.