The Chronicles of Burntown, Pt. 2

by Peter von Harten

  ###

  By the time we left the club, my head was still spinning from the loud music. I could barely remember what we talked about over all the noise and dancing crowds. It wasn’t really my thing, but fortunately we didn’t spend much time there anyway. Amanda got sick after about a half-hour. I spent most of the time keeping her company while Tasha met up with the boys. We agreed to head straight for the hotel. The plan was just to chill in the room for the rest of the night, maybe take a few downers and go to sleep after watching a movie.

  Janelle insisted on smoking up and cutting my hair first. I was surprised that it actually turned out pretty good, considering she was still a bit drunk. The bathroom floor was covered in a carpet when she finally finished the bob and grabbed a flat iron for the final touch.

  “See how much cuter you look?” she grinned.

  “It’s been years since I had bangs,” I laughed, running my fingers through it. “You’re amazing!”

  “Yeah, I was thinking about going to school for it. We really should have done this before we went to the club. Not that it would matter, because some people have to get sick!” she shouted out the open door.

  “Bitch, I had to clean up your vomit last time, so we’re even!” Amanda yelled back.

  “Sorry Kelsey,” Janelle sighed. “This wasn’t exactly the party I had planned out.”

  “Hey, I’m cool with it,” I assured her. “Loud and bright stuff isn’t my thing. I guess I’m just used to the quiet country air. To be honest, all the lights out here make me feel like I’m in a Xerox machine.”

  “Oh come on, you would get used to it,” she said.

  “Fine,” I relented. “You gotta give me some time though. What if I come out again for the summer? Like maybe for a month or so? And then you can show me everything and by the end, I’ll tell you if I want to stay or not. Sound cool?”

  “Well, you do have a couple more days up here,” she said, giving me a peck on the lips.

  “Whoa…why do you always do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “I dunno…are you sure you’re into guys? No offense, it’s just you’re kinda touchy-feely with me. Or is it the drugs?”

  “Force of habit I guess,” she sighed. “I don’t know, I just…I really want you to stay with me, Kelsey. I’m sorry if I’m pushing this on you, but I wouldn’t have told you all that stuff if I didn’t need to talk about it. I don’t know, it’s just something about you…you make me feel safe.”

  “Safe?” I laughed. “How?”

  “From thinking too much, I guess. Forget it,” she smiled. “Let’s go have fun, we’ll clean up all this mess in the morning.”

  The hotel room she’d reserved for the night was a normal two-bed deal, only because all the suites were already rented out. I suppose we could have gone anywhere else if we wanted, but the Hampton did just fine. It was just a bit cramped since there were seven of us in total. Still, I’d been in more claustrophobic scenarios in the time I’d spent with Janelle over the years. Strangely enough, I actually got the impression that she somehow favored it, considering her long list of rampant sexual experiences. I won’t even get into that. Fortunately, one of the guys hadn’t shown up. My cousin was of course pissed, but she shrugged it off for the time being. Tonight was my turn.

  Amanda was starting to fall asleep with her date Ryan cuddling close while Tasha sat on the end of the bed smoking with Kevin. Nate was a tall rocker boy with too many tattoos and a lip piercing who seemed pretty interested in me, so I guess you could say we hit it off pretty well. His ash blond hair was now longer than mine, a fact I wanted to argue with Janelle about since frankly I thought my new cut made me look like a bit of a dyke, but he thought it was cool. The three of us ended up hanging out on the other bed with him in the middle while we absently watched the blaring television here or there.

  “So where are you from?” he asked me, scratching at his stubble.

  “Kentsburg.”

  “Where the hell is that?”

  “It’s…it’s nowhere,” I laughed. “I swear, nobody knows we exist!”

  “Well it’s not exactly on the map,” Janelle grinned, sipping on a sour apple vodka. “You wouldn’t like it, there’s a lot of corn everywhere.”

  I knew what she was doing, and I already didn’t approve. She leaned her head against Nate’s as they shared a chuckle. Great. You’re already making this about you. I took out a cigarette and lit up. If I had to blow smoke in her eye, so be it. I wasn’t about to take another ride on the pity train of Janelle. I wanted to forget my problems, she wanted to forget hers. That’s why she brought me up here, right? Oh wait.

  “Yeah, Janelle kept missing it. I told you it was down the street and not across the road,” I said sarcastically. She shot me a death glare as I took another hit and exhaled in her face. Two can play at this game.

  “You weren’t so great at directions yourself,” she laughed, resting her head on Nate’s chest. “Kelsey gets a little confused sometimes, they’re prone to inbreeding out there.”

  “It’s kinda like abstract impressionism,” I fired back. Mom jokes are so last century, I cringed, biting my lower lip. “You know, how you think you know something so well and then you see it in a different light, and it’s a big blurry mess?”

  “Whoa!” Nate exclaimed. “Are you two fighting?”

  “No, what gave you that idea?” Janelle rolled her eyes.

  “I win.”

  “Well here,” she said, handing me her drink. “Don’t choke.”

  “If I do, we choke together. So here’s a toast,” I smiled, trying to turn things around. “To life…and all of us here, and to secrets, sisters, and potential threesomes,” I finished, passing the drink between all of us.

  As Janelle finished sipping and passed the drink over to Nate, a loud blast from the television suddenly caught my attention just before Tasha started to fumble around with the remote. A bunch of big words in bold flashed by until she changed the channel and Nate almost spilled vodka on me as my cousin leaned in to kiss him, but at that point I could have cared less.

  “Wait a second, what was that? Switch it back!” I said urgently.

  “Why? It’s just some stupid news report.”

  “I want to see what it says!”

  “Fine,” she sighed, tossing me the clicker. I frantically changed it back to channel 12 for CBS and turned it up, at last taking the glass from Nate. The news anchor looked serious as he began to read off the teleprompter.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we come to you live here on CBS News with a special report, and we highly encourage you to stay tuned with us for the remainder of the next hour. As you are aware, this is the very first time we have been permitted by the network to air breaking information concerning the strange spacecraft which crash-landed approximately three years ago today off the coast of Rhode Island in which seven human beings were recovered from what was believed to be the bridge section of the vessel.”

  My eyes went wide as I set the glass down on the nightstand, and Janelle and Nate looked over to me with concern. I guess they thought I was mad, but the truth is that I was too shocked to really pay attention to anything else. A tightness started building in my chest. Tasha gave me a weird look, though I noticed Kevin seemed to be just as glued to the screen as I was, and we both swallowed nervously.

  “What’s this about?” I asked absently.

  “Oh,” Janelle said, “you never heard about that?”

  “No.”

  “It’s creepy, right? I remember when it happened, they tried to run a video that some guy had filmed on the beach with his family. All of a sudden, you see this big thing in the background come crashing down from the sky and splash in the water. They must have been given a gag order or something, ‘cause right after that they cut to a different story and never mentioned it again.”

  The news anchor continued. “You can plainly see here, we’ve got some foota
ge of them drilling into the exterior of the ship…again ladies and gentlemen, this is the very first time we have been permitted to air this video since the craft was sent to NASA for analysis. Let’s just fast-forward a bit if we can…now this is a shot of the people being recovered and cut out of some sort of units that we’ve been told are similar in nature to our modern cryogenic tubes. We have been informed that all seven members of the crew are fine and have since fully recovered from the incident and appear to be in perfect health. As you can imagine, this situation has raised many questions over the past several years. Journalists and students alike have made many protests and demonstrations since the event spurred a public outrage as many have begged for answers. Where did these people come from? How far have they traveled? And most importantly, why are they here?”

  The cameras cut to show an assembled collage of footage from the last three years of demonstrators and riots in the streets, people trashing stores, looting, screaming at reporters and the police as they tried in vain to get control of the situation. Riot squads had been dispatched to silence the mayhem, shooting canisters of tear gas and carrying shields as everyone went nuts. A few different interviews were shown from college groups and people on the street as they expressed their views.

  “I just want to know why the hell they haven’t told us anything yet!” one woman exclaimed. “It’s been almost two years since that thing crashed in the water, and all they been doing is covering it up! I don’t feel safe out here no more, I want some motherf###ing answers, I think we deserve that much!”

  “And do you blame the news for this?” the reporter asked.

  “No, I don’t blame the news, I blame the government! It ain’t right what they’re doing! I want my baby kids to be safe. You don’t know what they’re hiding out there in Area 51 or whatever they call it!”

  They cut to another interview, and this lady seemed a lot more calm. Marissa Santago was the head of an independent newspaper publication called Flash.

  “The people are upset, obviously,” she explained. “They want answers, and frankly, I think they have a right to know what’s going on in the world and why this is being hidden from them. In my opinion, there’s really no reason for it. Until they get answers, it’s sad to say, but I think the riots are going to continue out here. I’m working overtime with my staff even trying to keep some of them in line, but we’re going to keep digging as deep as we can until we uncover the truth.”

  “Do you blame the news?” the reporter inquired again.

  “I think the mainstream news has a responsibility to tell the truth, so yes. I mean if my paper was hit by a gag order, I’d rather go down in flames fighting. I don’t think the networks should be forced to reveal their sources either, but unfortunately that’s just how it is these days, so…I don’t know. Nothing you can do I guess. The truth will come out somehow, even if it’s painful.”

  They cut to a more peaceful demonstration of college kids picketing and waving around signs in the air, shouting “we want the truth!” until the president of the organization came up to the podium and started giving a speech with a megaphone in hand. The entire thing started to put me on edge despite the alcohol working its way into my system.

  I just felt glad that we never had to see or deal with any of that out in the country. Not like I’m saying it’s bad to get involved, but I got the impression that city folks were much more prone to paranoia than those of us who lived in the country and weren’t so informed. Until then, I guess I was too content to remain blind. Seeing all this happening firsthand was a humbling experience, and now I was too interested to turn it off. Thankfully, the news anchor came back just as I was getting fired up about the demonstrators wrecking everything.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to put some of your fears to rest by assuring you that we do at last have some answers for you tonight. Sitting with me right now, we have the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Richard Morgan, who has agreed to answer some of your long-awaited questions. Hello Richard,” he smiled, shaking his hand.

  “Hello James.”

  “Good to have you with us.”

  “Thank you, the pleasure’s all mine.”

  “Now if I may ask, would you be willing to tell our viewers exactly what has been happening with the seven individuals who were recovered from the craft since the incident?”

  “Certainly,” the man said. “As you know, we did have to extract them from some heavily-sealed cryo tubes, and that proved to be no easy task. Once we got them out, they seemed heavily disoriented and a bit malnourished. We did have our specialists and the medical staff evaluate them for internal injuries. Thankfully, none were found. They made a pretty swift recovery after a couple weeks and have been fine ever since.”

  “And where are they now?”

  “I’m not permitted at this time to disclose the exact location, but they have been in the custody of NSA agents in conjunction with the United States government. As you’re aware, this has been a strict matter of high security for us and truth be told, we don’t like it any more than you do, but we’re just doing our job. We had to make sure there was absolutely no breach or leak of sensitive information until we were absolutely positive what we were dealing with and who these people were. It was never our intention to cause a panic, but unfortunately that’s what occurred.”

  “Have you performed any interrogations, or is there not anything you’re allowed to say in that regard?”

  “We have run interrogations, and we do have some brief segments for you tonight that we’ve been permitted to air.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  The screen cut to a recorded feed from a security camera of a woman in her mid-thirties with long dark hair, dressed in a hospital gown and seated at a table in a dark room. Her wrists were handcuffed to the chair. Not one of us said a word, and even Amanda and Kevin had stopped screwing around long enough to start paying close attention to what was going on. I looked over to Janelle, who quickly tore away from Nate and joined me at the end of the bed with eyes glued to the screen.

  “What the hell!” she gasped. “Why do they have her handcuffed?”

  “Shhh, quiet!” I hushed. After about ten seconds, the interrogation started as an older man entered the room and sat down across the table from her.

  “Would you state your name for the record please?” he asked.

  “I am Captain Elisa Hernandez of the Scout-class vessel Providence.”

  “Miss Hernandez, my name is General Thomas Way of United States Central Command. I understand it’s been a rough several days for you-”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” the woman sighed, cutting him off. “You still have me handcuffed and I’ve given you no reason to fear me.”

  “Look…I know you probably have as many questions as we do, but we’re just taking precautions. Those are for our protection, you understand.”

  “No I don’t. Treating me like an animal is no way to begin a proper conversation if you require answers.”

  Janelle laughed. “Kick ass!”

  “Shut up, I want to hear this,” I scolded her. Another figure approached the table, looking curiously at the man.

  “Take the handcuffs off,” he sighed, motioning for the guard. Elisa was unlocked from the chair and leaned in to prop her elbows up on the table, resting her chin in her hands.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “Alright, let’s get on with it,” the general said. He seemed nervous. “Miss Hernandez, would you mind telling us exactly where it is that you came from?”

  “My crew and I are from a much different time than yours as well as a different star system, but personally I don’t think that’s relevant. All I can disclose is that our star is approaching its red giant phase, so we left to find another habitable world.”

  “I see,” the general said, writing down her response. “Do you have any idea what might have occurred to bring you here, in this time? Did s
omething go wrong, was there some sort of malfunction?”

  The woman hesitated. “I’m afraid I cannot answer that. It did seem strange to me that once out of our planet’s atmosphere, my pilot Charles didn’t have to set the auto controls. The pressure’s been getting unpredictable even in steady orbit for this season, so all ships are required by law to operate on manual until clearing the outer ring. Somehow, the computer took over. Now our ship is fairly old, but…” She looked troubled for a moment as she trailed off. Janelle’s mouth hung wide open, but she kept her eyes glued to the television. I had to light up a cigarette for this.

  “What is it?”

  Elisa sighed. “Older vessels had certain manufacturing flaws in the way the autopilot programs accessed navigation…not that this should hold any significance to you. But before I continue, please tell me, Mr. Way…would you call yourself a believer in fate?”

  “Fate? I don’t understand,” the general said, holding his head in his hand. He seemed a bit more comfortable.

  “There is a version of history taught in my time regarding the first quarter of the 21st century on a planet from which the human race is said to have originated. No one can be exactly sure of what happened or how, but the story goes that man was on the verge of a major epoch. Science conflicted with religion, fear held a great basis in daily existence, industry and automation increased exponentially, therefore exhausting a great number of your natural resources which—combined with your tendency to lay waste everywhere—accelerated the process of global warming as nature sought to correct the problems inherent in a disease that some liked to call ‘progress’. Ironically, we’ve faced the beginnings of this trend on our planet as well. We call it the Kordan Paradox. That’s why we left.”

  The general stared at her in disbelief. “Are you telling us that you’re from the future?” he inquired.

  “I see no reason to believe otherwise,” she said. “It’s quite probable. It is also an irrelevant question, given the circumstances. You’re not listening. I’ve been debating this question in my mind ever since I awoke from cryosleep, we all have-”

  “What question?” the general cut her off.

  “Whether or not it is logical to do what we were sent here to-” she abruptly stopped. “To do what the gods in our time have asked of us…I’m sorry Mr. Way, this cannot continue. I fear I’ve already said too much, and any pleas I could make would only fall on deaf ears.”

  “What cannot continue? Who are you talking about?”

  She shook her head. “This interview is finished. It’s quite clear to me now that those in power in your time are stubborn and ignorant. You are so curious about us and where we came from that you fail to see any purpose whatsoever behind our presence, and so I must conclude that we will not reach an agreeable stance, much as I wish we could. We come from two very different times, Mr. Way. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help to you.”

  “Very well,” the man said, shaking his head. “I’ll see what I can do as far as releasing you, but we also have to question the rest of your crew if that’s alright. I apologize for all the security protocols, and I’ll see to it that you’re treated better.” They both rose from their seats as the guard came to escort her out.

  “Thank you, but I fear it is already too late,” Elisa insisted as the door was opened for the guards to escort her back to her cell. “Quetzalcoatl is coming.”

  “I beg your pardon?” the general asked confusedly, attempting to get one final reply. There was none. The video ended, and the screen abruptly cut back to Richard Morgan and the news anchor. I reached over to the nightstand and poured another drink for us, stopping to ash the couple inches that had burned down my cigarette. I had no clue how to feel about any of it, really. My own secrets paled in comparison, and I can’t say I gave much of a shit about them at that point. Whatever this thing was, I got the sense it was far bigger than any of us.

  “Wow,” the anchor exhaled. “What exactly do you make of that?” But as the camera turned the focus on Richard for a reply, the man nervously swallowed the lump in his throat.

  “James, if I may,” he shuddered, “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to cut the cameras at this time, that was not the footage we agreed to show.”

  “What?” a voice asked in the background.

  “I said cut the camera, get us off the air!” Richard shouted.

  “Okay,” James said, doing his best to remain calm. “Ladies and gentlemen, we do apologize for this inconvenience as it seems we’ve run into some difficulty, we should be back shortly.”

  “CUT THE FU-”

  The station cut to a commercial break just as the silence in the room was getting to be too much to handle, and Janelle quickly tore the drink from my hand and took a giant gulp before belching loudly in a way that sounded like she was about to puke.

  “Oh god, fuck!” she yelled, scrambling off the bed and over to the bathroom. I had to laugh. Hork, vomit. As she choked and gasped for air, Nate lent me a smile and began to seem strangely attentive, crawling over to me as I lay down on my back. I ignored him. What was I supposed to say? I was far too invested in the news story to pay much attention to anything else.

  “That was pretty crazy,” I breathed, taking a drag off my cigarette. “What do you think is going on?”

  “I dunno,” Nate said, running his fingers through my hair. I didn’t bother to shrug him off this time, because he did sort of have a very calming effect on me, unlike Janelle. I wasn’t feeling particularly starved, and maybe that was just it; my cousin seemed more intimidating to boys. She tended to steal attention every chance she got, so I had to wonder if all the cuts on her legs and the story of us being sisters wasn’t just an elaborate lie to get me to stay up here. Besides that, what was the whole comment of me making her feel “safe” really about?

  I was rather tempted to leave her to her own devices that night, though I knew I wouldn’t have much of a choice. So far, she had acted obnoxious, tried to steal Nate, and wanted me to move far away from home just so she would be able to leech off me in order to further perpetuate her own issues. She did have me feeling a bit cornered, but she was still my cousin despite everything. I can’t say I was ever good at saying no, and maybe that was my problem.

  “You’re so beautiful,” Nate said, bringing me back to the present as he stroked my back.

  “What about Janelle?” I asked. In the background, we could still hear her continuing to exorcize the foul, burning demons from the depths of her stomach.

  “She seems stuck on her own problems,” he laughed. “I mean, you’re pretty grounded for a country girl. Everyone around here is all bent on this routine, acting like they care about important shit. On the weekends though, it’s always the same. Get drunk, go party, drop the classes they’re failing. Even I’m guilty of that, but you…you’re different.” Ha! Yeah right.

  “That’s a pretty cheesy line. You’ve only known me for a couple hours,” I giggled. “We have what, maybe tonight and tomorrow before I go home?”

  “No fooling you, is there?”

  “I don’t have to be fooled, just shut up and kiss me.”

  As Nate gently brought his lips to mine, I finally allowed my inhibitions to slip away on a wave of warmth and tranquility. Everything about the night was already massacred beyond recognition anyway, and even though I could taste the stale scents of cigarette smoke, shampoo, a bit of sweat, and the fading flavor of sour apple lingering in the air, I wasn’t about to let anyone’s issues get me down. Janelle had brought me up here to get away from my stifled country life, and I figured I should enjoy whatever I could get for as long as I could.

  His hands soon began to trace the curves and contours of my body while he planted kisses down my tender neck as if to suck out the venom of worry. I let him continue running his hands under my shirt, fingers grasping over my skin quicker now. It was almost enough to distract my attention from the blaring television, though I still couldn
’t quite stomach everything we had seen. The thoughts in my head started to blur around in a strange symphony as my brain gave way to the alcohol flooding my bloodstream. I savored every experience, every touch, the sounds of the room, the noises of sheets tangling around legs and the songs of hallelujah breaths trembling from the other bed as Tasha and Kevin got busy.

  The bug of Nate’s hand began to crawl lower, lower, drifting down my stomach. I knew I probably shouldn’t let it happen. Janelle would be pissed the second she walked out of the bathroom and saw us, but I secretly prayed for it to happen, or for the television to switch back to the CBS coverage. I wasn’t one to argue or make excuses, which would have only ruined the night further.

  Aside from getting drunk, the reason I was actually starting to panic was because I felt my thoughts drifting back to home again, to Hux, to wondering if Seth was okay and if my parents would return safely from their trip. My heart was also beating a bit too fast, so I had to take a few deep breaths anyway to stay conscious. Thankfully, my cousin returned from her vomit-fest just as things were about to get too heavy. Nate immediately tore his hand out of my jeans and rolled over on his back while I sat up and scooted over to the edge of the bed.

  “Sorry about that,” Janelle sighed, smearing eyeliner as she ran a hand over her face. “Any new developments?” Nate and I looked at each other for a second, but quickly averted our eyes. She’d probably find out.

  “Not really,” he said, clearing his throat. “Show hasn’t come back yet.”

  “Ha!” she laughed. “You guys were messing around, weren’t you?” Great, I thought.

  “Oh boy, here we go…” I rolled my eyes and sighed, anticipating a fight. I should have known that none of this was about getting me out of Kentsburg to begin with. It was about Janelle. It was always about Janelle. Did I mention my cousin was insane? I guess one thing worth mentioning is that she wasn’t supposed to be drinking alcohol with her prescription meds. It only made her moodier, and a hell of a lot nastier if she wanted to be. Safe to say that at this point, I was praying for the news to come back.

  “NO Kelsey, I swear to fucking god! It’s not my fault Derek didn’t show up at the club so both of us could be happy, alright?!”

  “Oh my god, seriously?” Nate chuckled. “We’re not even doing anything, that’s not our plan tonight. Just chill out and have a good time, whatever happens will happen.”

  “You don’t understand, do you?!” She glared angrily at him.

  “Jesus, fine,” he relented. “Just come here, we’ll cuddle or some shit.”

  “No.”

  “I said come here, it’s okay.”

  “No!”

  “Shut up, the show’s back!” I exclaimed, happy for once that I got my wish. Much as I couldn’t stand my cousin, I was more interested in the news program. They continued bickering in the background until even Tasha and Amanda—who were now as glued to the screen as I was—told her to shut the fuck up and relax. Believe me, with Janelle in the room, it’s not so easy for everyone else to chill.

  But as the beginning animation segments and trademark intro music played this time, something seemed completely off about the broadcast. The same anchor showed up, as did Richard Morgan, the Secretary of Homeland Security, only their expressions were strange…almost as on edge as the rest of us, and they weren’t sitting in a cramped hotel room. James’ face was coated in a fresh sheen of sweat while Richard’s mouth sort of hung open in what I could only label as shock. Something seemed to have happened while the cameras cut out…something really bad.

  “Uh, ladies and gentlemen,” the anchor said, clearing his throat and adjusting his posture, “please forgive us for the delay and the small mishap…”

  “Oh shit, what happened?!” Janelle asked.

  “SHUT UP!” Tasha and Amanda yelled in unison. She immediately sunk back down to the bed and into Nate’s arms. I didn’t care.

  “Start talking!” a voice shouted in the background on the news.

  “Right,” Richard nodded, taking a deep breath. “Ladies and gentlemen, there are some people here who wish to speak to you,” his voice quivered. All of a sudden, someone in a black ski mask ran out in front of the camera with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. I immediately stood up from the bed, as did Amanda. Tasha tossed down the cigarette she was about to light up as we all slowly crowded around the television to see what was going on.

  “Alright, listen up!” the terrorist said, calling two other men to keep their guns trained on the anchor and Richard. “Before all of you at home start wetting your pants, it’s not our intention to hurt anyone. This station and every other network has been silenced for long enough! We just ran that segment to show you all what’s really going on. Don’t rely on this jackass Morgan to tell you shit! He’s just another puppet to make you feel safe. And you know what? None of us are safe! So tell me, Richie boy, just where the fuck is Elisa Hernandez?!”

  One of the men beat him over the head with the butt of their rifle before grabbing his hair, forcing him to talk. “I told you, they’re in federal custody-”

  “With NSA agents?”

  “Yes, goddamn it!” Richard groaned.

  “You all hear that at home?” the terrorist laughed. “Run the tape.” The screen flickered a second before going black, then the sound of static and heavy breathing cut in. For almost a full minute, that’s all there was until finally a hissing noise and footsteps could be heard. When the visual showed up, it looked like something recorded on a home video camera. It was pretty shaky, but only because whoever had filmed it sounded incredibly nervous. Our eyes never left that television.

  “Whoever is watching this, my name is Tim Jones,” a frantic voice said. “I’m a former CIA agent, I was based in Canada just over the border until about a month ago. Today is March 3rd, 2019. If you’re seeing this now, chances are it’s 2021 and the three-year gag order on all American media concerning the Providence incident has been lifted. They’ve probably shown you some doctored videos of mock interrogations performed by skilled actors and run stories about the bright future of mankind. If someone by chance has shown you the truth, then the movement I started has been a success and you’ve seen the real thing. I’m about to show you something else they don’t want you to see.”

  The hissing sound gave way to a low drone as he shuffled along in the back of what looked like some sort of freezer facility. Giant tanks of liquid nitrogen reached up to the ceiling, and he kept ducking out of the way to avoid the view of several scientists until they left the room. He then made several turns until he emerged into the open, giving us a clear view of the opposite wall. Janelle and Tasha gasped. Several rows of cryogenic tubes lined the entire end from one side to the other, floor to ceiling.

  As Jones turned the camera to a small computer console, he made it a point to note that the liquid nitrogen tanks had been turned off for the past several months. The cryo tubes themselves appeared to be new. So new, in fact, that they looked exactly like the ones from the spaceship that crashed.

  “As you can see, they’ve been busy at work deciphering the technology from the Providence. These tubes don’t operate on liquid nitrogen but instead use a synthetic chemical compound we call diosphorous oxide which needs to be heavily regulated. In specific trace amounts it aids the freezing process, but too much of the gaseous form is extremely toxic, which is why they’re also developing it as a weapon. Not that it matters since we’re already in deep shit. Now…you guys want the real Monty? Let’s take a look over at Tube 4…seven, six, five…and here she is in all her glory,” he said.

  “Oh my god,” Amanda gasped.

  “Say hello to the frozen face of Elisa Hernandez in carbonite. If you’re watching this, then you’ve seen the truth of Central Command’s interrogations. Thing is, they didn’t kill her or sedate her and lock her up in here, because if you check the logs, this Elisa Hernandez has been an ice cube for the past ten years. So that girl from the futur
e? Word from CIA intel is that she gets revived. And based on what we’ve heard from her little shipmates down in Arizona, I’m not so sure that’s something we want to happen. In the interrogations, she says nothing about their alleged ship malfunction, and-”

  “HEY! What the hell are you doing in here!” a voice shouted off camera. “Who is this guy, get him the hell out of here, sound the alarm!”

  “Shit! Listen, this is all a setup, there was no ship malfunction, this was intended as part of a plan! She’s lying, they’re all lying–"

  Suddenly, there was a snap and a flash from the television as the power cut out. The room fell pitch black. Tasha screamed and jumped backwards into Nate while my cousin and I fell to the floor gasping for breath. The only source of light left in the room at that point were the burning cigarettes Ryan and Kevin each held in their fingers. Janelle quickly tore herself away from me and dragged her purse down from the nightstand, scrambling around for her cell phone. She threw it down frustrated when she didn’t get service.

  “Oh my god, what’s going on!” she whined.

  “Dude, what did you guys do to the TV?” Nate asked.

  “I didn’t touch it, I swear!” I protested. Ryan went over to the window to open the curtains, letting the sliver of pale moonlight illuminate the room for as much as it was worth. It still seemed oddly dark. That was exactly it, and it took us all a moment to realize that the moon was the only light coming from outside. As I crawled over to the window and pulled myself up over the back of one of the table chairs, I felt my heart start to pound. Almost immediately, I felt my breath catch up in my throat. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

  “No lights,” Kevin whispered. “Anywhere…this whole block is…guys, you gotta see this!”

  I felt Amanda reach over and squeeze my hand as we all crowded by the window only to see the entire city falling to darkness one section at a time. Out in the distance, the power failed all over the grid in a sequential wave. Boom, boom, boom. Lights out, lights out, lights out. Buildings, traffic lights, billboards, street lamps, and even more disturbing…cars. Screeching noises echoed from far below followed by crunching and merciless horns honking until they too were silenced by the ensuing shadows. That’s when the screams came. Screams in the dark, screams of confusion, screams of wordless panic as a strange thick fog flooded the streets.

  “What’s happening?!” Tasha cried.

  “Weren’t you watching the news?” Nate asked. Ryan flashed him an angry look. “What? It’s true man, didn’t you listen? It’s the apocalypse or some shit.”

  “Dude, shut up!” Kevin shouted.

  “You really think they’d warn us for nothing? Man, we gotta get out of here.” All along the walls and through the ceiling above us, loud thumps and muffled yelling could be heard coming from the other rooms. Ryan proceeded to hold me and Janelle tight in his arms as Nate stormed off scared.

  “Screw this man, I’m outta here,” he muttered. He ran for the door, but as he tried to turn the handle, it was locked. The doors were operated by card sliders. “No…” he breathed. “No, no, no, FUCK!” he yelled. “Help! Help, somebody please! Help!”

  “I’m guessing no one told you guys about his claustrophobia,” Ryan laughed.

  “That’s not funny, this is some serious shit. I need a drink,” Tasha whimpered, running over to calm Nate down and guide him over to the bed to pour a shot for them both.

  As I looked back out over the blackened city, my thoughts were starting to run wild with everything that was going on. I wondered if Seth was okay back home, if our parents were okay or if this was something that was happening all over the world. Had they been in an accident? What really caught my attention now were the many people climbing out of their cars and running. Where were they running? What were they running from? And who was this Elisa Hernandez person, anyway?

  A flicker suddenly came over the room for a moment. Maybe it was a flicker of hope, just wishful thinking. Our lives flashing before our eyes, one last thing to enjoy before we all exploded or something. We hadn’t nearly done enough drugs for any of that, but still. The power flickered for a second, turned on for another. Nate up and bolted out the door the first chance he got as Tasha chased after him, but before we could rejoice in the next second—praying the endless emergency beep-and-colors screen would continue on the television—the power cut out again.

  By now our hearts were racing as if having been defibrillated, and the shadows grew darker as they closed around us. Everything went silent within a few seconds. No screams outside, no yelling from the adjacent rooms or banging on the walls. Just quiet. Blind in the dark. Silence. An eerie sense of calm took over which seemed to slow my heart rate, and all I could hear were gasps of breath through the haze. But something deeper was happening in the middle of all this that I couldn’t logically explain, something I instinctively knew was there because I could feel it quaking deep inside me as it vibrated throughout my being. My eyes began to tear up and I started getting this very heavy feeling in my chest. At the same time, an intense pressure built up in my ears. It felt like surfacing too quickly after diving into the ten-foot end of a pool, only to have someone heap a ton of bricks on your head. By the time I went to wipe my eyes, I realized I was shaking pretty bad.

  “What’s happening! What is this?!”

  I mouthed out the words, felt them leave my vocal chords and project outwards into an air that was fast turning cold, but I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear them, couldn’t feel them, couldn’t touch them. Anyone. Now I knew what Helen Keller felt like. I almost thought I was alone, but the others were still with me in that hotel room even as I fell to the floor in a vomiting mess, dizzy and light-headed. Agonizing seconds passed in the whirl of deaf-blindness before our ability to hear finally returned, albeit very slowly.

  Like I said before, that deep something was there, I could feel it pulsing inside me, but now it was rising. Rising like a flicker of power, a candle flame, electricity…something flashy like lightning. There was a very low droning sound that was just barely audible as the feeling mode of it began to take its leave of my body. My heart continued to pound and my head still shook, but at least I could hear. It was then that I noticed something tight was gripping my right arm, a sharp pain digging into it. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I looked down to see Janelle freaking out. Her screams were just above a whisper and there was no floor below me because she…

  “Oh god,” I spoke, my whispers echoing upwards like a weightless, dissipating smoke. And there was my cousin hanging on below me, a few feet off the floor. My cheek briefly grazed the ceiling. Over to my left was Ryan struggling to grab hold of me, and up over my head was Kevin. No, not Kevin. Kevin’s body. Drops of dark red were emitting out from his ears and eye sockets in the pale blue-dark hue of the moon, his shirt soaked in blood. Only then did I notice my ears were aching on the inside with the falling pressure, and I started to freak when I felt something wet running down my neck. But I knew that if I went crazy, Janelle wouldn’t have anyone left to hang on to, so I took a deep breath

  Looking over to the other end of the room, I noticed Amanda and Tasha positioning themselves over the beds. They seemed to be mouthing a phrase over to us, and it took me a second to understand what they were saying. Come over here, they motioned. I was able to actually hear them a couple seconds later as the sinking feeling abruptly left my gut, and suddenly it wasn’t necessary to make it any further. The deep bass-like pressure had been what was sustaining us in that freakish zero-gravity nightmare, and just like that, it was over. There was a loud screeching noise as we all dropped to the floor. I landed over Ryan. Janelle landed on Kevin’s dead body and started screaming. A series of shouts filled the halls outside as everyone in the building fell into a panic.

  “He’s dead! Kelsey, he’s dead!” Janelle cried. “Oh god, wake up! Please wake up. Wake up!” she screamed in Kevin’s ear.

  “Forget it, he’s gone!�
�� Ryan yelled as the room began to shudder.

  “You don’t even care?!” she shrieked.

  “We don’t know what’s going on right now!”

  “Guys…” Tasha said. “You feel that?”

  “I hear something outside,” I replied, rushing back to the window. There was a loud pattering sound coming from somewhere that at first I thought was rain, only it was higher in pitch. Thunder briefly bellowed in the distance, causing my heart to race faster than before. It’s rain, I thought. It’s only rain…right?

  “What is it?” Amanda asked, coming over to join me.

  That’s when I saw. That screeching noise when we fell. As I gazed down far below on the street, I noticed shattered glass blasting out everywhere in a crystalline waterfall from the left side of our building. For several moments I blinked while trying to block out the screams of my cousin, unable to believe what I was seeing. The shockwave was headed our way.

  “Amanda,” I shuddered, “get away from the window. Now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s not rain!” I shouted, running for the door. “Everybody get down!” But she stayed there, mesmerized by the avalanche as the quaking of the room got worse. “Amanda, NOW!”

  “You guys, I really don’t think-”

  She was immediately cut off when the window exploded right in front of her face with a huge gust of wind that drove a billion shards hard into her skin. She staggered backwards in shrieks of disbelief before falling—scratched and bloody—onto one of the beds. Tasha tried running over to help her, but she barely made it a step before another piercing screech sounded from right outside and Ryan grabbed her to hold her back. We all covered our ears tight as hurricane-strength winds flooded all throughout the room, blowing bits of broken glass and debris further in with a terrible force.

  “Bathroom, now!” Ryan insisted, shoving us all inside and slamming the door shut behind us. “I’m going for Amanda!”

  “No, are you crazy?!” Janelle screamed, but there was no answer. Only the howl and pressure of the wind as it quickly bore down into the hotel room. At one point we heard the television crash against the far wall, and those cheesy pictures they always have in hotel rooms fell to the floor in pieces. Meanwhile, elephant stomps echoed out in the hallway. There were several knocks and banging noises that came by along with concerned shouting as people ran for their lives and saved who they could along the way, but we were too damn horrified to open the bathroom door.

  All of a sudden, Ryan started pounding. “I got her, let me in!” he yelled desperately. “Goddamn it, hurry! Oh god, it’s coming closer, OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”

  I scrambled out from under the sink as fast as I could, slipping over the long chopped bits of my hair that remained from Janelle’s handiwork earlier. I had to unlock the knob, which I struggled to do in the dark since I was still half drunk and light-headed from the weightless sensation and subsequent pressure that had almost destroyed my eardrums. As it was, they were still ringing, and my whole body shook with the thudding of my heart as his frantic cries for help continued. By the time I managed to pry open the door, we heard the splitting sound of a razor-sharp buzz saw.

  I felt a splash of something wet spray onto my face when I grabbed his hand, followed by an inhuman scream. Ryan’s face disappeared into the dark void beyond, but I kept holding on even as the sawing noise continued into the door to our hotel room. Sparks flew and hinges broke, illuminating the ghastly sight outside the bathroom. It looked like a crime scene massacre.

  There was blood everywhere. On the walls, all over what remained of Amanda and her glass-riddled, now-decapitated body. All over the mangled form of Ryan, whose sweaty grip on my fingers never wavered, despite the fact that he was now dead and his severed arm was all that was left of him aside from the jumbled bunch of intestines and various entrails that had been splattered on the floor and as high as the ceiling. And all over me. My face was dripping with his blood to the point where I tasted copper and iron running into my mouth.

  Janelle screamed and kept screaming until she couldn’t do it anymore as Tasha fell into a sobbing fit, and me? I was too terrified to move. I knew that if I did, the truth would be waiting beyond the door. If I let go of Ryan’s hand, his whole arm would fall through the crack in the door and onto the bathroom floor without the rest of him. That was a truth I just couldn’t accept, and I don’t think the others even knew it yet. And still, the buzzing noise of whatever sort of machine was out there continued, getting louder as it ground vertically into the door. The machine that had killed our friends. After some while, it abruptly stopped and shut off with a beep.

  My cousin descended into a mess of whimpers. For a time, all was quiet and I just shook. Floods ran down my face and I wasn’t sure anymore if it was blood or tears, it all tasted the same. Tasha fell into me with Janelle as we all grabbed Ryan’s hand. His severed arm at last gave way through the door, and I turned my head to the wall and vomited. Stomps and shouts continued out in the hallway, people incessantly knocking on our door. Finally, I was able to pry myself up from the floor to answer them.

  “Hello!” a man shouted. “Is anyone alive in there?”

  “Yes…yes! Help!” I called.

  White lights flashed in through the hole the machine had burrowed in the front door, and for the first time, I got a good look at everything. The device itself was a large saucer-shaped object about five feet or so in diameter with three rows of razor-sharp blades coming out of the middle. The carpet and parts of the floor under it were torn up in a trail that led all the way to the window at the far side of the room, almost like it had ground its way in. A slew of what looked like darts had been driven into the wall in several places, and now a red light was starting to flash on the device as the man tried to kick his way into the room.

  “Be careful!” I yelled.

  “You see a giant machine with a red light flashing on your side?”

  “Yes!”

  “In what kind of sequence?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is it going one, one-two?”

  “Uh…shit…” I struggled, cautiously opening the bathroom door. Janelle and Tasha followed me out. “It’s blinking one-two, one-two I think.”

  “Alright, do me a favor okay? You alright in there?”

  “Yeah but our friends are dead! There’s only three of us left…” The rest are on the floor in pieces, I thought as I looked around me. Blood, broken bones, and flesh torn from ligaments. Eyeballs squashed into liquid like rotten fruit…

  “Alright…alright calm down, okay? Stop looking at what’s on the floor, look at me. Look at me, you see my face?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m a security officer, my name is Will. You’re just going to have to trust me and you’ll be fine. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” I nodded tearfully, doing my best to focus on his face through the large crack in the door. Safety seemed so close, but in between us was a huge hunk of metal that seemed all too ready to go meat grinder and tear my body into a thousand shredded bits. It was hard enough not to cringe at the fact that our bare feet were now soaked in the bloody remains of our friends. I was just glad I couldn’t see much of it.

  “When I tell you to, I’m gonna need you to push against that machine there as hard as you can and try not to cut yourself on the blades, alright?” Will explained. “What’s going to happen is it’s going to activate an automatic defense mode that it’ll send it clear across the hall and into the next room.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Just trust me.”

  “Is he crazy?!” Janelle snapped, dragging me aside.

  “You have any better ideas for getting out of here alive?”

  She started sobbing again. “But Kevin, Ryan, Amanda-”

  “I’m still here!” Tasha embraced her. “I’m here, okay? I’m not going anywhere, I promise. And Nate’s still out there somewhere, we’ve gotta find
him! Then we can all go home and forget about this mess, alright?”

  “Hey, you girls ready?” Will called. “Sorry to break up your moment in there, but you really don’t got much time! If that light switches sequence, you won’t be going anywhere!”

  “Okay guys, help me push it,” I said, taking a deep breath and moving over to the right side of it. My heart felt like it was about to explode with the knowledge of what we were walking through, so I tried telling myself that what I was stepping in were actually grapes from my Grandma Rita’s vineyard out in Colorado. When I was a little girl, we used to stomp them into juice to make wine. “That’s all it is,” I panted to myself. “That’s all you’re stepping on is grapes. They all make juice, they all get squished to the-”

  And then I felt a brief pinch of stubble as something cracked under my foot.

  “Oh god, Kelsey!” Janelle gasped. “You just stepped on-”

  “Don’t! Don’t tell me what it is!” I cried. “Just take my hand and step over…over the thing,” I breathed. Don’t say “body”.

  Tasha quietly followed her to the left side of the device as Will continued to shine his flashlight around to help us gain proper footing, or at least as much as we could get considering our feet were soaked in blood. We decided the best way for proper leverage was to dig our toes into the carpet. I grasped the machine with one hand at the back and the other around the middle, where it seemed to have ventilation holes and I could hold it steady. Janelle and Tasha did the same on our side. The moment we began to push it forward not even an inch, the red light on my side started flashing quicker.

  “It’s alright, it’s getting there, trust me, you’re doing great!” Will assured us. The noises of trampling feet and frantic shouts of panic continued beyond the door.

  “Are the blades gonna start spinning?” I winced.

  “Yeah,” he said grimly. “As soon as they do, you better let go quick and back away or your fingers are gonna get torn off.”

  “What about you?”

  “Guess I’m gonna have to stand aside pretty quick too, now ain’t I? You all got a good grip on it? Don’t get caught in the blades!”

  “Good thing we cut your hair,” Janelle sighed.

  “You ready for this?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Too bad. One, two, three…push! Push hard!”

  There was a loud beep in my ear, then a violent shredding noise as the giant death machine drilled the rest of its way through, mowing down the door and bowling across the hallway into the adjacent wall where it sent thousands of wood splinters and debris kicking up everywhere before again shutting off. Several people in the crowd stopped in their tracks, shrieking in terror. The light from Will’s flashlight seemed to have all but disappeared, though the emergency beams down the hall cast just enough for us to locate the exits. Janelle and I desperately tore through the wreckage of the broken down door only to find that the security guard who had just saved us had been crushed and mangled to death. It didn’t take long to discover that we ourselves were now in danger of being trampled by the endless stampede of people shoving their way past us in the dark. Tears started to cloud my vision, but I wiped them away and gripped my cousin’s hand tight as my heart felt ready to blast straight out of my chest.

  “Stay close to me!” I shouted over the crowd.

  “Kelsey, I’m so scared!”

  “Me too! We’ll be okay, just hold onto Tasha.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Just follow the traffic!”

  “What?!”

  “I said follow the--OOF!”

  Someone momentarily knocked me hard to the floor as they rushed past. Another person tripped over me and smashed their face, and a couple other people almost fell over him. Screams of terror echoed all along the walls, drowning out the sound of me yelling for Janelle and Tasha. For several seconds, my stomach sank at the notion I might never find them. The waves of darkness and bodies blocked out all manner of light from where I had landed, and hope suddenly seemed an entire universe away. But then I heard her faintly over the crowds.

  “Kelsey?! KELSEY!” she screamed. I backed against the wall as quickly as I could and rose to my feet to see her shadowy form about two yards away from me, pinned against the wall with Tasha. I cautiously inched the rest of the way towards them and grabbed her hand again.

  “I’m here!” I assured her.

  “Oh my god you’re okay!” she cried.

  “You alright Tasha?”

  “I think so…bit claustrophobic in here,” she breathed.

  “Tell me about it…time to merge in?”

  “I c-can’t do this!” Janelle whimpered.

  “I’ve got you this time, okay?”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise,” I gasped, hugging her tight. “I wish I had a shot for this…let’s go!”

  As we jumped headfirst into the fray of shadows and voices—the butterflies in our stomachs now flooding our veins with the shock of hopeless abandon—I kept one hand on the wall and held tight to Janelle with my other. It felt like being thrown into an endless hurricane of bodies, and as much as I scoured my mind for the right thoughts, nothing logical would materialize. Should I feel terrified? Upset that the boys and Amanda were dead? Should we even bother trying to find Nate? All of it was happening too quickly to digest. The only thing I found it possible to focus on now was the light ahead of us. That’s all that mattered. Get us to safety, I thought. I don’t know where we even are, but we’ll be safe soon. Just follow the exit signs.

  By the time we finally made it through the throng of panicking people and down the hall to the stairs, we hit a dead end. The crowds still hadn’t let up, and we soon found ourselves packed in so tight that it became noticeably harder to breathe. The top of the stairwell was blocked off at the entrance by several SWAT team members with flashlights barking out instructions to people who weren’t too content to listen. It was enough to make everyone stop in their tracks for a while at least, but between the people arguing with them up front and everyone in the back shoving us forward, I was getting pretty scared.

  “Kelsey, what’s going on?” Janelle asked, squeezing my hand tight.

  “I don’t know,” I shuddered.

  “Everybody listen up!” the main guard bellowed, firing a gunshot into the ceiling. The flash and loud bang forced the entire hallway into silence. “If any of you happened to see the special broadcast on the news, then you probably have some idea of what’s going on. Don’t ask me ‘cause I got no clue. All we know is that the tape started playing earlier this afternoon as different news stations on the west coast were held hostage. It was estimated it would reach here by tonight, so we got squads all over the city doing evacuations. Here’s how it works. We have a team up here and we got one at the bottom of the stairwell-”

  “And what’s waiting for us out on the street?!” one man yelled behind me.

  “Yeah!” Janelle shouted. “We’ve seen some scary shit!”

  “Keep your voice down!” I scolded her, but she wouldn’t listen.

  “You saw ‘em too?” the guy asked. “The big things with the blades?”

  “Yes I did!”

  “Look,” the SWAT member said as the crowd starting riling up again, “downstairs, they’re handing out oxygen masks. From there, we’ll be escorting everyone to an underground shelter a few blocks away. You’ll be protected, we got air cover-”

  “The fuck you do!” the man behind us shouted again. He was making me pretty nervous.

  “You’ll be fine!” the guard yelled back. “We’re taking you all in groups of twenty, now let’s get this going, come on! Nice and orderly people, nice and orderly. No need to panic, we got this all under control, I promise.”

  As the crowd started the forward march to the stairs, people immediately tried to shove their way through, matched with reminders from another man in charge to keep calm and wait their respective turns. Two groups of p
eople went before us. I did my best to keep my breathing and heart rate under control while we waited, every now and then taking a couple steps forward. Just like the cafeteria line at school. I didn’t even care that it was slow, I just held tight to Janelle and counted out heads trying to make sure we didn’t get separated. Two things began to happen at once though that threw me off real quick.

  First, I felt something hard poke into my spine followed by a demanding voice. It was the guy behind us who had been shouting. Too terrified to turn back, I ignored it right up until we neared the doorway and I felt it again. Then a loud screech from somewhere outside. Not as ear-piercing as before, but I knew something was coming. The crazy weightless thing. Panic racked through my chest as we heard it twice in succession, but by then I was too worried about the guy behind me.

  “Don’t say anything,” a voice whispered. “Just keep moving, nice and easy like they said.” Something clicked, then I felt a hand on my shoulder. Too scared to brush it off. By that time, I hardly noticed that Tasha had somehow slipped away behind us and now it was just me, Janelle, and the psychotic creep keeping one finger on my back at all times. Moving through the doorway, one of the SWAT guys cut the line right behind us and Tasha started yelling.

  “Wait, those are my friends!” she protested.

  “Too bad, orders are orders!” the man fired back.

  “Please,” I asked as politely as I could. “She’s with us, you really can’t let one more person through?”

  “Like I said,” he sneered, “orders are orders. Twenty people at a time. That’s it. Unless you want to be the one keeping everyone in control during a riot, little girl.”

  “I’m not a little girl.”

  “Why don’t you just fuck off, huh?” Janelle added, dragging me away before I got further into it with him. Not like it was really necessary, because two seconds later, I started feeling a shudder from deep in my bones and quickly grabbed hold tight of the railing. My cousin did the same.

  Suddenly, there was another SCREEEEECCCHH and a loud sonic boom. Our eardrums quickly grew painful and started tickling from inside with the vibrations and in one more moment, we arrived at the first landing. I covered my ears as I looked back to see Tasha breaking through the boundary at the top of the stairs while the guard had his ears covered. Keep your hand on the railing! I tried to remember my placement and footing, but between the strange echoing noises, the flashlights dancing around so we could see the path down, the bass driving my heart into arrhythmia, and the man behind us digging a handgun out of his pants, I sort of stopped caring about what I could hear.

  All that mattered in those few seconds was my vision, and even though my eyes were watering, I could see enough through the hazy blur of emergency lights. Then it started happening again. The weightless feeling of organs floating around, bouncing off my insides. My spine growing an inch. My feet rising from the floor.

  The sights of it were even scarier. Like you know when you tell a horror story and point the flashlight at your face to spook the hell out of everyone? It was sort of like that, only constant. I could tell people were screaming. Flashlights fell from the SWAT team members’ hands and drifted off absently into the abyss over the stairs and bounced off the walls. Everyone started pushing and shoving when they felt it happening, but I was more focused on plastering one hand on the railing and the other to my cousin’s arm. In some ways, it was like experiencing the pressure of water without even being under it.

  Janelle’s blonde and black strands fell aimlessly around her head like a pile of ribbons in the ocean of faces. Open-mouthed expressions of silent horror through the lights, droplets of crimson exiting ears and eyelids and noses, chokes and grunts of inner death as some older people’s organs exploded inside them. And the stench of human waste here or there, some extremely pungent, a combination of piss, blood, and shit that no one should ever have to experience. Pink rain in the light, pale yellow, dark brown. Cold fluid, and then I felt the crushing of my own ears. More blood flowing out. I prayed to whatever god was out there that I wouldn’t start hemorrhaging. I had to stay with my cousin. Had to, needed to. Hand on the railing, and the downstairs people drifted up.

  Some above us decided at the last moment that it might be faster to float over the railing and pull their way to the bottom of the stairwell, which turned out to be a huge mistake because within seconds, I heard the ringing return to my ears. Thanked the universe for allowing me another opportunity at life, but others weren’t so lucky. A shrill sense of dread fell over me as I watched everyone who had just launched themselves off the walls and railings suddenly fall. Some caught on at just the right time and grabbed the nearest step or person’s foot they could hold onto, but everyone else?

  My hearing hadn’t even returned yet before being silenced again by another screech. Not the gravity wave, but the horrified shrieks of the crowd as about seven or eight people fell to their deaths at full speed, cracking open skulls and breaking spines on the railings as they descended in the mess of spinning flashlights and bloody rain. Then in the last seconds of it all, there was a strange up-phase where the pressure and numbing bass feeling got suddenly heavy for a fraction of a second without the gravity subsiding, which in some ways made the experience worse. I made damn sure my hand was still stuck tight to the rail, then there was a flash of several explosions. Guns going off. Like July 4th fireworks.

  The man behind us screamed, which I heard faintly. The last I saw of his face was instantly blown off in the backfire, after which I fell to the floor and started screaming myself. Not ‘cause I was scared. My head was in such excruciating pain that I swore I had a skull fracture of some sort. This continued for several minutes after I peeled myself off the steps actually, and somehow my hands were still in the same places I’d forced them to stay. Janelle’s hand and the railing, all the way down.

  People fell down around us meanwhile, some in front and some behind. Some vomiting blood. Their bodies couldn’t take the pressure. Janelle found a flashlight after a bit and shined it around the stairs. We didn’t see Tasha for a while until we neared the very bottom, and three of the SWAT guards were dead down there. The others had reluctantly started gathering up some of the other bodies under the stairs. If I had to guess, I’d say maybe about twenty. Probably less, but it’s a damn good estimate. Tasha rounded the last corner as we waited for her, the red streaks down her face scabbing over.

  Suddenly, a loud screech cut through the stairwell again and we all froze a moment. I looked at Janelle. Janelle looked from me to Tasha, and we exchanged glances for about two more seconds before we backed up for the door.

  “FUCK NO!” I yelled, grabbing our friend by the wrist and hurling us all out into the first floor hallway, bounding for the street exit as fast as my legs would carry me. I didn’t even care that I knocked over a few people on the way, or that a SWAT officer happened to be waiting at the end with the light on his gun pointed in our direction. He tossed it down when he saw us tearing through, already feeling the wave of pressure on our backs. I was so out of breath I could have collapsed right then and there, but something within me held on.

  Breaking through the door to the outside, a wave of wind and lights greeted us. I could still faintly hear the thing from inside the building, but there was no pressure or boom. The air was breathable by then, though a dissipating mist still hung in the air. No weightless feeling in my body, no blood dripping everywhere, no piercing pain. Some of the riot police and SWAT squads who remained had already dispersed in the crowds. Others fired shots at those spinning circular machines that dove through the air now and then, and it seemed every time they succeeded in shooting one from the sky—or mostly those that were stuck to buildings or had embedded themselves in the concrete—a ton of car engines restarted or lights came on somewhere.

  Helicopters came out to rescue people from blown-out floors of the hotel above us and sirens started echoing in the distance. They found out how to beat them for now,
I thought. Whatever they are…whatever the fuck this is. Still, it happened slowly. I remember hearing a buzzing in the distance, wondering what it was. Not wanting to look back. Smoke blasts that froze people in their tracks behind us, people who seemed fine as they continued running but later blasted apart from the inside after they’d been hit with some kind of darts. We grabbed up coats from fallen bodies and ducked under them as we ran.

  Thousands of people stampeded through the streets as we desperately tried to find our way through three blocks of mayhem and people bumping into us back to Tasha’s ugly old Buick. Once we finally located it on the second floor of the parking garage, we high-tailed it out of the city as fast as we could without so much as a second look back. It took six hours, but that was it. And by then, we were on the fast road back home through the open country and miles of endless fields as we mercilessly chased the dawn. We never found out what happened to anyone else. I don’t think I’d even want to know.