by Ike Hamill
“Fine,” Jim said.
The boy turned and climbed the stairs three at a time. He disappeared around the corner up there. Brad waited until he heard the door close and click. Then, he went back to the communications room.
At one point, the little room had been a pantry off the kitchen of the center house. Back when the house was built, cans of food and boxes of dry goods were so well preserved that they could be kept almost indefinitely on shelves and pulled down whenever necessary. Now, their extended family kept their stores of food down in the cellar of Lisa and Romie’s house. It was cool down there and they kept the food out of direct sunlight.
The pantry had been so central to the three houses that Robby was inspired to install their communications equipment in there. They could have put terminals in every room of the house, but having one central hub connecting to the outside world felt right. It allowed their family of three houses to feel like its own island. No matter what happened to everyone else, the people in these houses would be okay.
Brad brought up his private messages and scanned through the normal reports. He was on every chain that talked about the infrastructure that the survivors had created. Finally, he spotted what he was looking for.
Robby had sent a message. It wasn’t marked as urgent or anything.
Brad read it twice—the second time, he studied each word. It seemed impossible that Robby would come back north while his daughter was in the jungle beyond the Outpost. On his fingers, Brad counted the hours, trying to estimate when Robby would be there. Even if he made record time from the Outpost back to Gladstone, they would have time to pack in the morning.
Before he logged off and went back to bed, a status icon caught his eye.
Brad left the machine running and grabbed his cane.
It wasn’t easy to make it up the stairs and down the hall silently, but he did it. Brad turned the knob on Jim’s door and pushed his way into the room. The kid was lying on his bed with his hand propping up his head. He looked all too innocent, staring up at the ceiling.
“Uncle Brad, you should know better,” Jim said.
Brad crossed the room. The bedside light was on. There was another source of light as well. Just a sliver of light painted the wall next to Jim’s head.
“I should?” Brad asked. He crossed the room. His cane tapped the floor with each stride.
“You don’t barge into a teenager’s room. Isn’t that what you’re always saying to Romie?”
“Uh-huh,” Brad said. “This time, I knew exactly what you were doing.”
He raised the cane.
When Jim saw the stick coming for his head, he rolled away and raised his hands to protect his face. That alone made Brad’s temper flare—the notion that anyone would ever hit Jim. But Brad used the opportunity.
Using the cane, he flipped Jim’s pillow, revealing the tablet. Before Jim could grab it, Brad put his hand on the device.
“Hey,” Jim said.
“You’ll get this back when you learn to respect privacy,” Brad said, taking the tablet.
“It’s not my fault you have such a simple password,” Jim said.
“Your father will be interested to know that you broke into the gapped network so you could hack from your room. I bet you’ll be banned from the server for a month when he finds out.”
The implication of his crime dawned on Jim’s face within a fraction of a second. Jim liked nothing more than messing around with his tablet. Now that he had been caught, that privilege would be revoked.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Jim said.
“Too late.”
“Please don’t tell on me. I swear, I’ll do anything.”
“We don’t keep secrets from your father. You know that.”
Brad turned and walked out of the room. While he closed the door, Jim sat there, silent and looking shocked.
Chapter 19: Lisa
The sound was very familiar to Lisa. When she was growing up, it was a sound that she heard every summer. As soon as school ended each year, she was shipped off to live with her aunt and uncle at their country home. Their house sat in the middle of five acres. It should have been quiet and serene. For Lisa, it pretty much was. The country didn’t have trucks idling, people yelling to be heard over boat engines, or planes overhead.
Instead, they heard crashing trees and tumbling rocks from the quarry on the other side of the grassy field. Her uncle complained about it constantly.
“I know this is his way of getting back at me for not selling the pond,” her uncle would say. He was referring to his neighbor, who leased access to the quarry to a local construction contractor. The ruckus created by the equipment weighed heavily on Lisa’s uncle. It was all he talked about.
“What is that?” Ashley whispered.
Lisa snapped back to the present.
“It sounds like construction equipment.”
Ashley appeared even more confused as she tried to figure out what Lisa was referring to.
“Something big is moving through the forest. That sound is trees being toppled and rocks banging against each other,” Lisa said.
Ashley didn’t seem convinced.
“Let’s get a little closer. Maybe we can see something,” Lisa suggested.
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“Anything making that much noise isn’t going to notice us. Come on—we don’t have much daylight left. We need to know what it is before we decide if we can camp here, right?”
Ashley let Lisa lead the way.
She picked her way slowly through the leaves and between the branches. The closer they got, it seemed impossible that they could make enough noise to be noticed, but she still wasn’t about to take a chance. The only thing missing was the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of a reverse alarm. If they had heard that, Lisa would have been utterly convinced that they were approaching a construction site.
Ahead, through the jungle, some leaves shook. Lisa figured they were about to find out what was knocking down the trees and causing all the noise.
From their right, something streaked out from the bushes.
Lisa barely had time to react before impact. The furry projectile ran right into her knees.
“Penny!” Lisa said.
Another shape was coming—this one was much bigger.
Ashley pulled her back, but it was too late. The second shape materialized and tackled Lisa to the ground.
“Stay down,” Tim whispered.
He reached up another hand and dragged Ashley down as well. The three of them and the dog were all sheltered by the broad leaves of some thick bush.
“Get off my arm,” Lisa said. “You’re killing me.”
“Sorry,” Tim said. He shifted his weight. He gestured emphatically to Ashley. “Go that way. Quiet.”
Ashley led the way, crawling along the jungle floor. Her backpack swayed from side to side as she crawled. At the insistence of Tim, Lisa crawled behind her. The dog kept pace with Lisa and Tim brought up the rear.
Over a slight hill, the sound behind them seemed to disappear.
“Okay,” Tim said. “This should be far enough. We’re okay here.”
“What is it?” Lisa asked.
“Shhh!” Tim said with a finger pressed to his lips. “Let me listen.”
They waited for several minutes before Lisa realized that the sound was retreating. The change was subtle. Penny settled down to the ground and panted as Tim cocked his head, listening to the crashing trees. Ashley sat up into a squat. She looked ready to bolt at any second.
For no apparent reason, Tim put up his finger and raised his eyebrows.
A second later, the noise stopped.
“It’s gone,” he said.
“What’s gone?” Lisa asked. “What makes that noise?”
“I wish I knew,” Tim said. “It has been chasing you guys for a week and I couldn’t get on the other side of it. I finally realized that I was going to have to take a chance and get around it if I was going t
o warn you.”
“What?” Ashley asked.
“A week?” Lisa asked.
Tim only nodded.
“Tim, what are you talking about?” Lisa asked.
“I have been following you guys for about a week, trying to get around that thing so I could warn you back. I didn’t want you to get too close. When you get too close, that thing is nearly impossible to shake.”
“Tim, we’ve only been out here for a day,” Lisa said.
He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Tim stared at them, blinking.
“It’s true,” Ashley said. “We have been following your blazes all day, but that’s it.”
Tim shook his head.
“That’s impossible. Then who have I been following? And who has been leaving the blazes?”
“It wasn’t you?” Ashley asked.
Tim shook his head again.
It only took a few minutes for Tim to recount his entire story.
“I came out here and almost immediately I found a blue tent that looked like it had been vacated hastily.”
“Yes,” Ashley said. “We saw the same tent. We assumed that it wasn’t yours.”
“I kept moving the same direction. At first, I was making my own marks on the trees, but I quickly found the marks left by someone else. I worried that the marks wouldn’t lead in a straight line, but then I figured there was no way to be sure.”
“Is it possible that you made a big circle?” Lisa asked.
“I thought the same thing,” Tim said. “That’s why I started to make secret marks on the trees with my knife. I guess I started to get a little paranoid, you know? I thought it was possible that someone might be trying to trick me.”
“You said that you’ve been following someone for a week, Tim, but you haven’t been gone that long,” Ashley said.
“I counted the days,” Tim said.
He pulled up his pants leg. For a second, Lisa thought that the marks on his leg were cuts and she took in a startled breath. Then, he pulled out the red marker.
“Each morning, when I get up, I make another mark on my leg. I didn’t think about it until the second day, but I think it’s accurate.”
Lisa counted the marks. They were grouped into sets of seven, and there were already four completed groups.
“We can’t stay,” Lisa said. “We have to go back. There’s something screwy going on with time over here and who knows what it’s doing to us.”
“Hold on,” Ashley said, putting up both hands to stop Lisa’s train of thought. “Tim, feel your face. Is that a month of beard on your face? Have you been shaving?”
Tim rubbed his chin and then raised his eyebrows in surprise. “No. You’re right. This is barely a few days growth. And, of course I haven’t been shaving. I wouldn’t waste the water.”
“And how about your supplies? Have you been eating from your pack the whole time, or did you forage?”
“Mostly pack. Wait—all the food was from my pack. I found an apple tree that looked out of place, but I didn’t end up eating any of the fruit. It seemed too weird, you know?”
Ashley nodded.
“Are you okay, Tim?” Lisa asked. “You seem a little disoriented.”
Tim still had the red marker in his hand. Glancing between Lisa and Ashley, he seemed unaware of what his own hands were doing.
“Yeah, I feel fine. It has been a little stressful, being out here alone and being chased by that thing in the woods, but I feel okay.”
As he answered her, he uncapped the red marker and made another tick on his leg.
Lisa and Ashley looked at each other.
“How are we going to find our way back?” Ashley asked.
Chapter 20: Robby
The ride was exhausting. Robby turned into the driveway and hit the button to raise the garage door. His son’s room sat right on top of the garage. If he was lucky, Jim wouldn’t wake up. Robby didn’t feel lucky.
Every muscle felt sore as he got out of his car. The garage door descended and Robby plugged in his vehicle to let it recharge. There was a light on in the kitchen. He had hoped to make it to his bedroom so he could crash for a couple of hours, but it seemed like that wasn’t going to happen.
The door swung in. Romie was standing in the doorway.
“I didn’t expect you,” Robby said.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Romie said. “It’s nice that I can still surprise you every now and then.”
“The kids?”
“Asleep. Barely,” she said. She held the door open for him and then went back to her post at the kitchen counter. Robby moved around it and set his bag on the floor before he collapsed into one of the stools.
“You’re not going to catch a few winks before the trip?” Romie asked.
“Yes, and maybe I’ll sleep in the car.”
She nodded. Romie shifted her weight and leaned with her elbows on the counter. Robby glanced at her and figured that she had been up for a while.
“Lisa and Ashley got off okay, I assume?” she asked.
“They’re off on their adventure in the jungle,” Robby said. “Tim beat them to it. Apparently, he decided to sneak off before we got there. I hope they manage to catch up with him somehow.”
“Huh. I thought he was done running.”
Robby shrugged.
“You look like death,” Romie said. “You really should lie down.”
“It has been a long night,” Robby said. “I was fighting my own brain all the way here, you know? I was forcing myself to pay attention to the road, but the whole time my brain was trying to focus on the weird physics going on.”
“So, it’s back. That’s what you’re not saying. The thing is back for round three.”
“No,” Robby said, shaking his head. “I really don’t think so. Nothing like this happened the first two times. There was a gradual infestation of strange phenomena that the government was trying to cover up, but it wasn’t as if the physical laws of the universe decided to take a break for a while. There has to be a way to tie it all together. We’re just not seeing the big picture.”
“I don’t even know the small picture,” Romie said.
Robby opened his mouth to explain, but Romie put up a hand to stop him.
“And I’m not trying to,” Romie said. “You know me—I’ll want to know when there’s something we can do something about. I’m fully aware of my strengths, and they’re all in the action column.”
Robby sighed.
“You want to tell me anyway, don’t you?” she asked.
“It actually might help to describe it all to a person who doesn’t have any opposing theories.”
“Like Judy, or…”
Robby nodded, hoping she wouldn’t finish the sentence. If the kids weren’t around, Robby preferred not to talk about their mother.
Romie waited silently for him to continue.
“For years, we’ve known that electricity was broken in the wasteland beyond the Outpost. There were no issues to the west or north, and we couldn’t find anything wrong when we ventured out into the ocean.”
Romie yawned. She turned and opened the refrigerator while he talked.
“That was the only thing we observed that was strange. We called it a wasteland because everything was leveled during the first two waves. Then, just before the churn, ribbons of plants were observed out there. Carrie sent several missions from Northam down to explore the wasteland. Almost nothing was done out west because of the difficult terrain. Up north, the damage from the flooding made exploration dangerous.”
Romie turned back around with a pie plate. She set it down and opened a drawer to find a spatula.
“I know you’re just starting from the beginning, but could you gloss over all the shit that I’ve known for years and years?” Romie asked.
Robby ignored her.
“The more I think about it, the jungle after the churn wasn’t new growth. Our reality was mixed up and jumbled with to
ns of other realities during the churn. It’s possible that all the plants down there now would have been perfectly mundane in the Origin’s reality, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think that beyond a certain radius from the center of the churn, we picked up life that was never native to any of our worlds.”
“You’re forgetting Patrick and Hannah,” Romie said.
“How so?”
She scooped a wedge of pie and put it on a plate. Romie set the spatula down in the sink.
“Remember? The theory was that everyone was from a different reality, but Hannah knew Patrick from before. That kinda disproved that whole idea.”
Robby shook his head. “Not necessarily. They could have been very similar, but still different. In my reality, Charlie was a convicted murderer. He killed Carrie long before the world ended. The same people existed, they were just slightly different.”
“I don’t know. From what I understand, Hannah was pretty sure.”
Robby shrugged.
“Okay, so that may be. Anyway, regardless, those plants are not native to anyone who knows about such things, and they don’t appear as North American fauna in any of the reference materials we have access to. So I think it’s safe to say that they came from some strange place when the churn was unwound.”
Romie put a fork on the plate and pushed it toward Robby.
“No thanks.”
“Your daughter made it. She wanted to freeze it so you could taste it. Think of the look on her face when she finds out that the first thing you wanted to do was taste the pie.”
Robby picked up the fork.
“Is it good?”
Romie shook her head slowly.
Robby chuckled and took a bite.
“So you think the plants and electricity problem came from some other reality,” Romie said.
“No,” Robby said through a mouthful. He pointed his fork as he talked. “No, just the plants. I was working on a theory that the plants were causing some kind of electromagnetic problem that was inhibiting electricity. So the problem didn’t arrive with the plants, it was caused by the plants. See what I mean?”