by Sean Platt
Mother didn’t respond to Rebecca’s accusation, or anything else she said for the remaining 15 minutes to the community center. But her face stayed angry, all the way until she pulled into the community center parking lot, parked right in front of the entrance, then turned to Rebecca and said, “You need to quit your brown-nosing, young lady. And I mean now. Open this door or move an inch before I get back, and you’ll be in just as much trouble as your sister.”
Mother didn’t wait for Rebecca to respond, just ducked from the car, slammed the door behind her, and marched toward the community center doors in her pajama bottoms and a sweater. Alexis would die of embarrassment before she even had a chance to be punished.
Even though Mother was acting mad at her, Rebecca knew it was really because she was so mad at Alexis, who was probably sinning all over the place. Rebecca hated that Alexis always got in trouble, even if she sometimes told on her. She hoped maybe this time her punishment would be so serious that it would put an end to her sister’s sinning. They had their differences, but that didn’t mean Rebecca wanted her sister to burn for eternity in The Lake of Fire. And like Mother said, Alexis’ soul was definitely at risk. Ronnie was a sinner for sure, but just because he was willing to sell his soul to the Devil didn’t mean he had to take her sister’s, too.
Rebecca’s thoughts were shattered by sudden shrieks from Alexis, growing louder as Mother dragged her by the hair toward the Camino.
“AHHHH, MOTHER! That HURTS!” she screamed. Mother’s fist was curled inside Alexis’ hair. The DREAM! A dreadful chill charged through Rebecca’s every nerve. No, this can’t be happening.
“I will NOT raise a harlot!” her mother screamed, cigarette dangling out of her mouth as she shoved Alexis forward.
Alexis was as red as the county fire truck, and getting redder as the small huddle of kids, mostly boys, laughed and pointed at Alexis as she was dragged toward the Camino. Rebecca felt a small but undeniably sharp pain, a stabbing wound slipping into her guilt.
Mother opened the passenger door, shoved Alexis inside so hard that the girl’s head hit the outside of the door with a loud thud, which made her cry out even louder as she fell into the seat next to Rebecca.
Mother walked to her side of the car, climbed inside, started the car, then peeled out from the lot.
A long minute of silence smothered them before Alexis turned to Rebecca and hissed through tears, “What are you smiling at, brat?”
“I ... I wasn’t,” Rebecca said truthfully.
Mother snapped toward Alexis. She looked so mad, Rebecca was sure she was about to slap Alexis across the side of the face. Rebecca felt the usual fear growing fat. She didn’t mind if Alexis got in trouble, but she didn’t want the hitting to start.
She quietly prayed that it wouldn’t, and was glad when it didn’t.
“You should thank your sister,” Mother said. “She’s looking out for your soul.” With that, she snapped her attention back to the road.
“You told on me? I can’t believe it, you little BITCH! You are so dead.”
Mother reached across and backhanded Alexis across the face, her elbow hitting Rebecca along the way. Mother didn’t allow swears.
“If Rebecca hadn’t told me when she did, Good Lord knows what would have happened to you tonight.”
“Nothing would have happened to me, Mother!” Alexis glared, defiant. “The problem isn’t me, it’s that you don’t trust me.”
Rebecca waited for Mother’s hand to redden her sister’s face again and prayed it wouldn’t.
“Of course, I don’t trust you,” Mother said. “Nothing separates a child from God like the evils of their own will. And I know exactly where your will would like to lie. Any sort of sinning could have happened tonight. You could have done drugs, or worse, you could have gotten knocked up.”
“Like you did?”
The back of Mother’s hand found the side of Alexis’s face again, but harder, the slap a thunderclap within the Camino’s interior. Rebecca could tell that her sister wanted to scream, but muffled her cry. With her left hand steady on the wheel, Mother let her hand fly once more to underline her point, more violent and practiced than the prior strike.
Rebecca turned her watering eyes away from her sister, and stared at the road ahead, wondering when the evils of her own will might separate her from God, and Mother.
Twenty
Desmond Armstrong
Kingsland, Alabama
In the woods near The Sanctuary
March 25
11:11 a.m.
“We’re all trying to survive and make the most of this.
Breathe in, breathe out, be merry.”
Desmond hated Jimmy’s words falling from John’s mouth. It was an unnerving he couldn’t pinpoint. And he HATED being unnerved.
Those words had been playing on infinite repeat in Desmond’s head as they crunched through the carpet of drying leaves in search of Rebecca and Carl. The pair had marched through the forest and over the hill looking for the two missing children, but there was still no sign.
Desmond kept the gun in his waistband. He didn’t trust his trigger finger, or the man up ahead making it itchy. Desmond couldn’t explain why he thought Jimmy’s words in John’s mouth sounded so wrong, and felt so ominous. They just did, like some sort of weird impression more than a mimic. People picked up idioms and expressions all the time. And Jimmy and John had been neighbors for years, not to mention all that time they’d spent side by side at the Drury, back in the beginning of the end of the world. So, it would be natural for John to adopt Jimmy’s telltale expression, right? Maybe it was even intentional – John using Jimmy’s phrase to show Desmond he was relaxed. Maybe he was trying to put him at ease as they searched for the missing children, alone in the woods crawling with unknowns and, possibly, “Demons.”
Or maybe he was just trying to repair old wounds.
Or maybe not.
Desmond wished it felt right, but it didn’t. And he couldn’t ignore it. He had thrived in life via his sharp instincts. It was difficult, if not downright impossible, to shake the vibe that something was off.
“Are Rebecca and Carl an item?” Desmond asked, trying to ease the tension, even if it was only in his head. “I mean, I know they’re both a bit young, especially Rebecca, but do you happen to know if the two of them are sweet on one another?”
John turned back to Desmond and frowned. It wasn’t an accusing frown, so much as surprise by the audacity of the suggestion. “No, of course not. That sort of behavior is forbidden at The Sanctuary. The Prophet would be terribly upset if something like that were to happen.”
“But they’re kids,” Desmond said. “Kids are going to do what kids are going to do. Thousands of years of evolution aren’t going to change that innate drive just because The Prophet wants to keep everyone tucked in their beds with God in their hearts. It has nothing to do with the end of the world, that’s just the way people are wired. And kids, well, you remember puberty, right? Kids don’t care what grown-ups say. They’re gonna try and get away with whatever they can. Least that’s the way it was for me, my friends, and everyone I knew.”
John shook his head and set his jaw. “It is our duty as The Chosen adults to hold kids in our charge to a higher standard. The old way went to Hell because the adults who knew better didn’t.” He raised his hand in the air. “Maybe everyone is burning in the Lake of Fire because they didn’t hold themselves and their children to a standard as high as ours. Is it so inconceivable that this happened because of our soft morality and bottomless capacity for sin?”
Desmond wasn’t sure what he should say, but figured nothing was best. He was creeped beyond belief and in mild shock that John bought into all the Bible thumping. He bought the bullshit wholesale. He and John may not have gotten along before, but Desmond figured him for a sharp guy, and was surprised by his clear lack of judgment of basic human nature. Then again, if John had lost his grip on sanity, then maybe that would exp
lain the weird vibe he was giving off.
And if there’s any place to lose one’s sanity, it’s back at The Loony Farm.
If John needed to clutch the Bible to get him through the night, who was Desmond to scoff? You didn’t tell an alcoholic that the 12 steps were bullshit if they were working for them. It was a matter of belief. John needed to believe, too. He had lost Jenny, and the rest of the world. He didn’t have the strength to survive without something. That’s gotta be it; it’s his crutch. And Desmond wasn’t the kind of guy to kick away one’s crutch, even if he didn’t see a need for it. He was a guy, however, that would fight back if you tried to push your crutch on him.
Yet, that’s exactly what Desmond was having to do at The Sanctuary; sit on his hands and bite his tongue while playing out the role he’d been cast into. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep a smile on his face before he snapped and spoke out. If it were just him, Desmond would have maybe followed John to The Sanctuary, then left about five seconds after the so-called “Prophet” started passing out the Kool-Aid.
But Desmond wasn’t alone. He had a new family: Mary and Paola and Luca and Will, plus Linc and Scott. And while he couldn’t tell what was going on in the back of Will’s mind, the rest of the group obviously felt safe, at least safer than they had. If they didn’t mind the heaping bullshits of dogma, not to mention the prison-like rules, so be it. He would eat shit and smile when he swallowed, at least a little while longer, or until a better opportunity came along.
“Up here,” John called. Desmond recalibrated his senses, turned and saw John pointing toward the wide and tall opening of a cave. A dozen paces later Desmond was standing beside John, looking into the darkness.
“Think they went inside?” Desmond asked.
John shrugged. “No way of knowing. Can’t think of a reason not to go inside and look. Can you?”
John glared at Desmond, almost accusingly. Desmond shook his head and stepped past John, into the permanent night of the cave. Desmond wanted to mend fences, so he played along. While John seemed a bit wacky, he didn’t seem like a threat. John wasn’t the most masculine of men, and his prowess with a gun seemed ineffectual enough that if he went postal, Desmond would be able to protect himself with little difficulty.
“I’ve got the light,” John said, flicking his Coleman flashlight to life and stepping in front of Desmond. He bounced the beam around the cave’s interior, highlighting the dingy gray of the rocky walls, plastered in damp moss and a wretched scent. Something slick squished beneath their feet, maybe molding leaves blown in from outside. But probably not, Desmond figured. It felt 20 degrees colder inside the cave than a step outside, and it seemed to grow colder with each echoing step.
“How deep do you think it goes?” Desmond asked.
John stopped.
“Not sure,” John said, kneeling and shining his light into a wide fissure. “See that?” Desmond didn’t, so he kneeled, too. John kneeled another few inches forward lowering the light’s path to something Desmond couldn’t see.
Desmond said, “I don’t . . . ”
John’s flashlight went dark and the pair was plunged into darkness.
Something moved behind them. Something that sounded large.
Desmond threw his hand in front of him to feel for John, but it fell through air. He stood, swallowing panic.
“JOHN!”
His call echoed and caromed across the walls of the cave and came back to mock him. Desmond called again, but heard nothing as he reached out, moving forward.
He pulled his pistol from his waistband and slipped his itchy finger over the trigger as he stepped forward, trying to retrace his path back to the mouth of the cave.
Something moved again, this time closer.
“John!” he cried out.
His cry was answered by the sound of clicking, echoing against the cave walls.
Twenty-One
Edward Keenan
Black Island, New York
March 22, 2012
8:58 p.m.
“What?! What do you mean we’re the ones who vanished?” Brent asked, his eyes staring at Ed as if he’d just told him the moon wasn’t real.
“What were you doing at 2:15 a.m. on October 15?”
“Sleeping. I woke up sometime in the morning, and my wife and son were gone.”
“Right. But it wasn’t they who vanished. It was you. You, me, and everyone else you’ve met on this island.”
“What are you talking about? We didn’t go anywhere.” Brent said, his exasperation clearly rising.
“You know how you’ve felt off since the vanishings?” Ed asked. “Like the world around you isn’t quite right?”
“Well, yeah, but look around. It’s not like things are exactly normal.”
“More than that. Deeper. Anything unusual, about the world itself? Something slightly off – like the feeling you get if someone’s been in your house when you weren’t home, or when you’re trying to remember something but can’t, or even déjà vu? It’s like all of that, but different.”
Ed waited for a response.
“What are you saying?” Brent finally asked.
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but considering all we’ve seen, please just hear me out. This isn’t our Earth. It looks the same, feels the same, and has a lot of the same history, but this is not our world. It’s a parallel world, and on October 15, something happened here that killed millions in an instant. That same something pulled us over from our Earth to this one. You, me, and everyone you’ve met on the island so far are all from our world, snatched over at the exact instant that The Vanishing happened here.”
“Wait a second. So people here, on this other Earth, vanished, too?” Brent said, “I’m confused.”
“Millions died in an instant, all at once. We’ve seen their corpses. But there’s a hell of a lot more people that vanished. They went somewhere; maybe to our planet, or maybe taken away by some giant spaceship; who knows?”
“So, what does this have to do with Gina and Ben?” Brent asked, his eyes scared and confused as he tried to work out what Ed was saying. If he even believed Ed.
“The Gina and Ben who are on Level 6, the infected people we found, they’re from this world, not ours. Everyone we’ve found who is still alive from this world are also infected with this alien parasite; the same aliens we’ve encountered. They’ve infected all who remained here.”
“I know my wife and son when I see them!” Brent said, eyes red with emotion and struggling to hold back the tears.
“Yes, but they’re not your wife and son; they may look the same, sound the same, and maybe even have the same histories, but they’re alternate versions of your Gina and Ben, or what we’re calling parallels.”
Brent shook his head, “No, this is all crazy Twilight Zone shit. You’re either insane or fucking with me.”
“All the things you’ve seen since October – the dead bodies, the aliens, the weird weather – and you choose to close your mind now?”
“Listen, I love science fiction. I get the idea of alternate worlds as a concept, but the reality of it is impossible. To suggest there’s millions of different realities based on each action we take, branching and spinning off new worlds, that’s all bullshit theory, not fact.”
Ed sighed. He wasn’t sure why, but he thought Brent would be easier to convince. “I’m not saying there’s all these different worlds, different versions of us, and all that. I don’t know what there is. Hell, the scientists here don’t even have a grasp, so far as I can tell. All I know is that there are two Earths in question; two versions of us all. I met my parallel when I got here. He’s one of the scientists, hell of a lot smarter than I am, so obviously this isn’t an exact duplicate of our world. But it’s as real as you and me sitting here, and that broken beer bottle you dropped that’s stinking up the room.”
Brent sighed with a slight shake of his head, then a gentle nod.
He’s getting it. Just a
bit more convincing.
“OK, let’s say you’re telling the truth, or the truth as you see it, anyway. How do you know that Ben and Gina didn’t come over here with me? That they aren’t my family?”
“There are slight chromosomal differences, the scientists said, between our two peoples. Like I said, I’m not a scientist, and I didn’t understand what they told me about that. Something about their people being slightly different, maybe more evolved, but whatever it is, they know the difference. And they tested the woman and child on Level 6. They’re not yours.”
Brent looked like he was staring at a crossword puzzle perfect but for a missing word. He was close to being won over; he just needed the last piece.
“Trust me.”
Brent ran his hands through his hair so hard, Ed couldn’t tell if he were trying to pull his hair out or keep his brains in. He looked up at Ed a few times. Ed kept silent, allowing Brent time to finish processing the information.
“So, if they’re not my family, where is my family? Are they still alive?”
Good man. Now we’re moving in the right direction.
“I presume they’re still on our Earth, and probably alive, though I can’t be sure. Nobody here knows much about what happened, why it happened, or how we were all brought over. Well, someone here might know, but they didn’t tell me.”
Brent stared straight ahead, at Ed, but not really. He looked exactly like Ed expected a man to look who’d been told that his wife and son, practically given up for as dead, were really alive. Maybe.
Finally, after several minutes, Brent found his next question. “Why did they tell you any of this? Why not tell everyone?”
“There are very few who know. Very few. I’m the only one from our world who knows. Well, now I’m the only other one from our world. I ask you this: Why does the government ever lie to its people? Two reasons, to maintain control and to maintain safety. In this case, both.”
