by Sean Platt
“You can’t save her,” he said. “It will kill you if you try.”
Luca tried not to be angry. “I thought you said I could save three people. I only saved two.”
“You did save three,” Will said. “You saved an entire family, Luca. Paola, her Mother, and her unborn sister. That makes three.”
Luca gasped. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He wanted to cry.
“I didn’t know,” Will said. “I didn’t see it ahead of time, and was out cold when you were on your way to rescue Paola. I couldn’t have stopped you.”
Will’s mind went suddenly silent, and made no noise for a minute, almost like he was dead, but then he came back, almost louder than before.
“I’m sorry,” Will said. “I’m sorry about Rebecca. But I have an answer.”
“To what?” Luca said.
Will’s laugh was too broken to call anything but a bark. When he was finished, he said, “An answer to a question I didn’t know we were asking.”
Luca was quiet, waiting for Will to continue. When he finally did, his voice was so weak it was barely there. “You can go home, Luca. You can all go back home.”
Luca swallowed. “How?”
Could he and Paola and Mary, and the new baby inside Mary, really all be safe together?
“How?” Luca asked. “How do we get back home?”
“There is another you and another me,” Will said. “Like us but different. We’re on their world. Not our own.”
Will’s signal was barely there and his color almost gone. “You have to get to Black Island. It’s just off New York. And find the other Will. And tell him . . . tell him to look in the moon.”
“Look in the moon?” Luca asked.
The silence was so long after Will said the word moon that Luca couldn’t keep himself from asking any longer. “Will?”
He called and called with all his mind, but Luca couldn’t find Will anywhere.
“Will!” He called again, this time out loud.
Boricio was suddenly in front of him, looking down at Luca cross-eyed.
“Will!” Luca screamed, again in his mind, but with everything he had.
Luca heard the cry of silence.
The man with the lobster tacos was dead.
Ten
Charlie Wilkens
Charlie had no time to grieve as his friend’s corpse threatened to crush him.
Instead, he pulled the boy toward him, then Adam’s body on top of them both, shielding their huddle from the erupting chaos and bloodshed. The truck continued to rock back and forth.
It had to be a terrible nightmare Charlie would wake up from any second.
Nothing in reality ever gets this bad.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!
But he wasn’t waking up.
The boy cried under Charlie. Charlie put his hand over the boy’s mouth and whispered in his ear, “Shh, it’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.”
Charlie kept repeating his promise, over and over, as if repetition bred truth.
More screams amid the echoes of tearing flesh and deathly gurgles that flooded the death chamber. Charlie squeezed his eyes tight and continued to repeat the phrase over and over.
“It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay . . . ”
Gunfire erupted outside, and Charlie felt warmth from a thin ray of hope as the truck finally stopped rocking.
The kid squirmed his mouth from Charlie’s hand and cried out.
Charlie said, “Shh, wait.”
Bodies continued to shuffle, kick, scrape, and scream everywhere around him as Charlie held tight to Adam’s body, praying like hell that the monster wouldn’t smell his attempt to play dead, then head back over to feast on his flesh.
The shrieking outside stopped, though the screaming, and now shrieking and clicking inside the truck, continued. It seemed as if at least two creatures were inside with them.
Two monsters among a dozen people. It wouldn’t be long before the creatures had killed everyone and turned their attention to searching for survivors, and finishing their jobs. Charlie hoped like hell that whoever was outside would open the truck before then. He would take the boy and run, as fast as they could, and never look back.
After what felt like minutes, the gunfire stopped, but the truck stayed sealed. The screaming inside the truck had ceased, replaced by the sound of clicking, shrieking, and dying.
Oh fuck, they killed everyone.
We have to keep quiet.
Charlie’s grip on Adam’s body slipped, and he let go of the kid’s mouth to grab Adam’s body to use as a shield. The child’s cry brayed loudly over the swiftly fading final seconds of death all around them. One of the creatures shrieked, then advanced toward them in the darkness.
Fuck!
Charlie was torn, not sure if he should stay put, push the kid out to let him die, or scream for help. He was tempted to let the kid die, but shame kept his arms wrapped around the child. He screamed instead, “Help! There’s a kid in here alive! Help! Help! Help! Help!”
Charlie started to pound on the wall as both creatures shrieked, and continued toward them.
He had seconds until they were on him.
Something clicked, just inches behind him.
Charlie turned to face the black surrounding him, clenching his hands like claws and bracing for impact.
The door to the truck suddenly rolled toward the sky, slapping the top of the truck with a clank of metal as twilight illuminated the carnage inside the truck, with two creatures looking like some twisted and mutated monstrous set of Siamese twins.
Fresh gunfire erupted into the truck, and the creatures’ bodies danced under a hailstorm of bullets. The few bullets that didn’t sink into their flesh whizzed by and into the back of the truck, plinking off or sinking into the metal with a series of hollow but nerve-rattling thuds. Charlie pushed himself against the boy as close to the wall and as low as he could get as the boy continued to cry.
When the creatures both finally fell, and the bullets stopped blasting, Charlie called out, “There’s two survivors in here. We’re human.”
“Show yourselves — slowly,” a man’s voice commanded.
Charlie pushed Adam’s headless body out of the way and onto the slaughterhouse floor of the truck, swallowing his need to vomit, distinctly aware that puking might make him a target of the three men in black uniforms holding their guns steady on his crawl.
The men were also wearing masks with air breathers on them, like he’d seen in post-apocalyptic movies. Charlie held his hands to the roof and stood, coated in blood which was not his own. The boy stood, too, shaking, looking up at Charlie’s face, and then over to the gunmen. His face was streaked red with tears and blood.
Charlie immediately wondered if these were the men who had taken Callie. Then, in a second disgusted moment, wondered if Callie was among the bodies in the truck. He wanted to look, but didn’t dare turn his eyes from the men. He still couldn’t believe Adam was dead, and the reality made his heart heavy in his throat. He couldn’t stand to consider the possibility that Callie was also dead.
“What happened?” one of the men asked.
“I dunno,” Charlie shook his head. “We were all asleep inside, and the truck was stopped. Next thing I knew, I heard these things outside, and then all hell broke loose in here. I think one of them got inside the truck somehow.”
Charlie didn’t dare say the monster he’d seen wasn’t just a monster, but half human. It was becoming clear that these things could somehow take over people’s bodies, like in those Aliens movies. Or maybe they were killing real people and replacing them with pod people like in some Invasion of the Body Snatchers bullshit. Either way, Charlie didn’t want the men in black having any reason to suspect him, or the boy, of being one of the creatures.
“Did you see what happened to the Guardsmen transporting you?” the man to the far right asked.
“No,” Charlie said, looking down at the boy. He was blon
d, freckle-faced, and wearing a dirty, blue New York Mets T-shirt and jeans, all covered in blood, most of it probably Adam’s. He looked terrified, but was staying still and mute.
“Step down,” the same man instructed. “Slowly.”
“Thank you for saving us,” the kid said, his voice hoarse from screaming. He looked up to Charlie, “And thank you, mister.”
Charlie smiled, both at the kid’s thankfulness and for calling Charlie ‘mister.’
Nothing ages you quite like the end of the world.
They stepped out of the truck and onto the road where Charlie saw two matching black vans parked about 100 yards away. He remembered Adam saying that Callie had been thrown into the back of a black van.
How many black vans were rolling around nowadays? The odds were too slim for coincidence. The people had also taken him, Adam, and presumably all the people in the truck. But why?
One of the Guardsmen, as they called themselves, climbed inside the truck and surveyed the damage. He then climbed back outside and turned to the man who’d been doing most of the speaking, “They’re all dead, sir, including the two infected.”
Infected. So, they know.
“Shit,” the man on the right shook his head.
Charlie could now see a small, silver tag on the man’s vest which read, Foster.
“Test these two,” Foster instructed the man who’d been looking in the truck.
That man, whose badge read, Lennox, pointed his assault rifle at Charlie and the boy, “Walk.”
The boy immediately started walking, while Charlie was inclined to go a bit slower, annoyed that Lennox felt the need to give instruction with the end of a gun. Charlie was getting a bad feeling about whatever was about to happen next.
They walked to the closest of the two vans while the other men, Foster, and the one whose name Charlie had yet to see, followed. Foster opened the back doors, and Charlie felt hope swelling in his chest that he might see Callie sitting in the back. But the van was empty, except for some molded plastic storage units built along the left wall, which also had space for a small desk and a computer built into a console, along with a black stool attached to the floor.
Lennox grabbed a long flashlight, or at least something which looked like a flashlight, with a long, blue bulb running along the side. He instructed the boy to stand with his arms outstretched, “like an eagle.” Lennox waved the bulb over the boy like he was checking for hidden weapons beneath the kid’s clothes. The light made a slight beep as it went over the kid’s left knee, and the other two men, now standing behind them and watching, immediately put their hands to their guns as if they might need them at any second.
What the hell is happening?
Charlie winced, bracing for the worst as the man ran the light over the kid’s knee again. This time it didn’t beep, which seemed to relax the other Guardsmen.
“OK, he’s clean,” Lennox said, then pointed to Foster. “You go stand with him.”
Clean? This must be some kinda test to see if we’re infected with that monster shit.
The boy walked over to Foster and stood beside him, watching as Charlie assumed the position, standing in front of Lennox and spreading his arms.
Lennox began to run the light over Charlie’s body, stopping when it began to glow bright, beeping while hovering over his chest.
The Guardsmen grabbed their rifles again, and Charlie swallowed.
Oh God, don’t say I’m infected.
Charlie felt a roll in his stomach as Lennox brought the light back up to Charlie’s chest. Again it beeped.
Oh shit.
Charlie swallowed.
Infected? I’m gonna become one of those?
“He’s infected,” Lennox said.
“Put him in the van,” Foster said.
The kid cried, “No, he saved me. Please don’t hurt him.”
Lennox turned his attention from Charlie and onto the kid to see how the scene played out, as if Foster might change his mind if the kid gave a compelling argument to spare Charlie any harm.
“We’re not going to hurt him,” Foster reassured, “We’re gonna help him. We’re going to save him. How would you like to join him in the van?”
The kid stared at Foster, nervous, and probably thinking that maybe Charlie would go Incredible Hulk while in the van.
“Can’t I ride with you guys?”
“We’re all going to ride together,” Foster said. “Go ahead.”
The boy seemed uncertain, but then started toward the van.
He’d gotten maybe six steps when Foster raised his gun and shot the kid in the head.
The child fell face first onto the road, and Charlie screamed, “No!”
How can they shoot the kid? He wasn’t even infected. What the hell?!
“You fuckers!” Charlie screamed, wanting to run at Foster, and smash his face in.
Lennox put a gun to Charlie’s head, stopped him in his tracks, and shoved him toward the second black van.
“Time to take a ride,” the man said, marching Charlie forward.
“Where are we going?” Charlie asked.
“Black Mountain,” the man said. “And don’t give me an excuse to shoot you in the head.”
Eleven
(Other) Luca
Black Island Research Facility
Level 7
July 2011
THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT …
Luca looked down at his hands on the table, not wanting to meet the mirrors.
They made him uncomfortable. It was like a funhouse without the fun. Mirrors surrounded the room, except for the metal door in the middle. No matter where he turned his head, his eyes stared back. Luca could feel the people behind the mirrors staring back. He could hear some of their thoughts, too.
Today was the big day, the day everyone had been waiting for. Today was the day of the test. Luca knew it was important, but he didn’t know why. His dad never really said, even when Luca asked. He was sure the test was why they were back in the underground room on Black Island, where he’d come for the surgery to remove his tumor.
Of all the people on the other side of the mirror, Luca felt his dad most, along with his dad’s colors. His dad was usually the color blue. Sometimes his blue was so light it was almost white. That was because his dad never really seemed like he was afraid of anything. That was probably why he was never mad. Not like Luca’s brother, Boricio.
Boricio was always nice to Luca. Actually, Boricio was always nice to everyone, but he still wore the color red, almost always and no matter what. At least as long as Luca had been seeing the colors, since he woke up from his surgery.
Today, his dad’s blue was gone, and he was somewhere in between yellow and green. Yellow and green were nervous, and that made Luca a little scared.
Luca didn’t fear many things, but disappointing his dad was definitely one of them. His adopted father had done so much for him, the thought that Luca might let him down was terrible. Scary.
Luca could feel everyone breathing faster as the steel door opened and the man named Mr. Sullivan came into the room.
He smiled at Luca, and Luca smiled back. Mr. Sullivan sat in the chair opposite Luca at the table and said, “Good morning, Luca. How are you today?”
Mr. Sullivan was wearing sky-blue. He didn’t seem nervous at all. “I’m great,” Luca said.
“Are you scared?”
Luca shook his head. “Nope. I’m not scared.”
“Are you nervous?”
Luca nodded. “A little.”
Mr. Sullivan smiled, then laughed. “Have you been seeing any sad spiders?”
Luca laughed, too. His dad made up a game when Luca was first adopted. Whenever Luca was sad, his dad would tell him not to let the sad spiders start crawling on his body, then he would reach down and scoop the invisible creatures from Luca’s skin and throw them on the floor and stomp on them with a giant, angry smile. Lately, Luca had been having bad dreams. His dad, and some of the
other men in white coats, had asked Luca to draw pictures of his dreams. Luca drew only two kinds of pictures: sad spiders or Terrible Scary — the place that held all the bad stuff that had ever happened to Luca, like when his first family died.
Mr. Sullivan said the tests were supposed to help make the “sad spiders” and “Terrible Scary” go away forever.
They had done practice versions of the test before, but this one was more serious. The real thing, his dad said.
Mr. Sullivan held a card in the air, blank side facing Luca, then asked him what was on the other side. Luca guessed correctly each time.
A spaceship.
A carton of milk.
Two girls skipping rope.
Two boys playing video games.
A happy family having a picnic.
“Great job, Luca. Keep going,” Mr. Sullivan said.
Luca smiled, feeling proud as his dad’s color softened from green and yellow to a baby-blue on the other side of the mirror. His dad was happy, and that color was closer to proud.
His dad was the first person to notice how Luca could sometimes read feelings, and sometimes even thoughts. He had always been good at it, since before he even realized it was something special, and not a thing most people could do. Before the operation, Luca could only do it sometimes, and not necessarily when he wanted. Now he was great at it, and could figure out feelings and see stuff on the other side of cards whenever he tried.
It was like learning to ride his bike. At first, it had been super-hard and Luca kept falling. One time when he was first learning, Luca fell off the bike and onto the sharp side of a rock. It tore his knee open, and so much blood spilled out, his dad had a hard time calming him. His colors went from blue to almost red, while Boricio’s went from red to almost blue as he tried to make jokes to keep Luca laughing.
Boricio had said, “Don’t let fear inside your house, Luca.” He tapped the side of his head. “That’s valuable real estate, and fear will try to squat without paying.” He shook his head. “Don’t let him.” Boricio dropped his voice to a whisper. “Fear’s a real bad guy, you know. A total jerk. And manipulative. The second he moves in, he’s gonna try to get you to live a boring life. So, you never wanna let him in. You with me so far?” He winked at Luca.
