by Damien Boyes
“He was still drunk from lunch,” Dad says. “Went through the windshield. They found him fifty feet from the crash, lying in the street. He’s in the ICU, paralyzed from the neck down.”
I want to blame myself for that too but find it hard—besides, I don’t know that I did anything. Who knows what happened. Right now, it doesn’t matter, I just want to go home.
“Can we go then?” I ask, looking around for my clothes. “They didn’t cut my shirt, did they?”
Mom gives me a quizzical look but says, “No, it’s folded up in the drawer.”
I sit myself up and pull back the sheet to swing myself down from the bed, but Mom stops me and Dad gets out of her way.
“They want to keep you overnight,” she says, and when I open my mouth to object she keeps right on talking, “just for observation. If your EEG is good in the morning, we’ll go.”
“I’ll come by and check on you,” Dad says. “And I must warn you, I have access to pudding.”
“I don’t want pudding. I want to go home.”
“The police need to talk to you,” Mom blurts. “You’re supposed to stay here.”
“The police?” I ask, suddenly nervous though not sure why. I haven’t done anything wrong. “About what?”
She furrows her eyebrows. “What do you think? After what you walked away from?”
“Am I under arrest?”
“What?” Mom asks, and shoots Dad a look like she hadn’t considered that.
“No, of course not,” Dad says. “What could you be in trouble for?”
Right. I didn’t do anything. I survived being hit by a truck, how’s that a crime?
“One night?” I ask.
Mom’s lips split in a wide grin. “One night.”
I slump back into the bed and want to be frustrated but I can’t. I’m not dead. I’m not sick. And I got a ten-thousand dollar reward.
As bad as it started, somehow this day couldn’t have ended any better.
6
The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness
Mom and I settle in and watch a rerun of the Tonight Show, and once David Letterman comes on Mom stretches, yawns, says she’s going for a coffee and asks if I want anything.
“Why are you drinking coffee at this time of night?” I ask her. “You should just go home.” Otherwise she’ll spend all night here, tossing and turning in that chair beside the bed, and neither of us will get any sleep.
“No,” she says. “I’ll stay here with you. I don’t mind.” She looks down at the hard chair. “I can sleep there, it’s not a problem.”
“Go home,” I insist. “I’m going to sleep anyway. Dad’s downstairs. No point in you being uncomfortable all night.”
She looks out the window, in the direction of the apartment. Her bed’s only a five-minute drive from here. “You’re sure?” she asks.
“I’m fine, Mom. Really.”
She bobbles her head like she’s still thinking it over but then leans and kisses my forehead like she hasn’t done in years. “I’ll be back first thing,” she says as she gathers up her purse. “I love you. See you in the morning.”
“’Night, Mom,” I say. “Love you too.”
The moment after she steps out of the room there’s a sudden rush of air and an electric crackle and then a man’s standing under the TV.
I recognize him instantly—that weird guy in the old suit who was laughing like a lunatic from across the street as I went into convulsions.
I don’t think, just immediately swing to the floor and get the bed between us. I reach around for something to protect myself with, but there’s nothing here to use as a weapon because this is a hospital. All I can do is grab the beige water pitcher from the stand and cock it beside my ear. I don’t know if I’m going to throw it or swing it at him, but if he takes one step closer we’re both going to find out.
“Nurse!” I yell. “Help.”
“Jasmin Parker,” he says with his eyes wide and his hands patting the air, “please be calm, I mean you no harm.” His voice is weird. Foreign, but with no accent I’ve ever heard before. Kind of lilting and whistly, but even that’s not as freaky as him calling me by name.
How does he know my name?
Must have read it on my chart, or maybe at the nurse’s station. But how did he get into the room?
He hasn’t moved since he first spoke, and now that I’ve had a chance to look at him he’s younger than I thought at first. It’s the suit that makes him look old. He’s got a long, prominent nose and light eyes under the thick arches of his eyebrows, and his hair is so black it shimmers.
“Who are you?” I ask. Where’s the nurse?
“I am Grackle,” he says, twitching his head in a nod. With his slicked-back hair and his too-short tweed suit, he looks like a cartoon bird come to life. “I’ve come here for you.”
I grip the water pitcher tighter, ready to heave it at his head if he comes even a hair closer. “You’ll stay the hell away from me if you know what’s good for you.”
Grackle purses his lips and nods. “Of course,” he says, almost to himself, then glances out the window before setting his eyes on me, and says, “you don’t know who you are yet … I’m sorry, but we don’t have time to argue. You must come with me.” He moves to grab me, and I throw the pitcher at him. It slows him down long enough I can yell again, and this time I don’t hold back.
Just as the nurse comes racing in, the air crackles with the smell of overloaded batteries—then pops. She sees me standing with my back against the wall and a pitcher rocking on the wet floor and stops short.
“What is it?” she asks, scanning the room.
“Him,” I say. I point to the corner where the lunatic was standing and see nothing but the TV. He’s gone.
“Who?” the nurse asks, bending and looking under the bed. Then she stands and puts her hands on her hips. “Was it another rat?”
I can’t exactly say, No, it was a strange man and he tried to grab me but then he disappeared. They’ll think my brain is broken and I’ll never get out of here.
So I nod, up and down, quickly. It’s all I can do—I sure can’t speak. There’s an invisible lunatic in my room.
Either that, or there’s something very wrong with me.
The nurse shakes her head and sighs. “They won’t hurt you—but we’re going to have to get the exterminator back in here.”
“Thanks,” I say as I climb back into bed, scanning the room for signs he’s still in here, watching me. “Sorry about the mess.”
“No trouble, dear,” she says and pauses in the doorway. “I’ll get Vince in here with the mop. Now try to get some sleep.”
She strides out of the room and I immediately fix my eyes back to where Grackle was standing. The moment the nurse leaves, the air shimmers and he steps through electric nothing and back into the room. So, not invisible?
“How do you do that?” I ask, putting on the tough-girl voice I use when guys harass me on the bus.
He presses his hands together, takes a tentative step forward, and glances out into the hallway, but he doesn’t make another grab at me. “I understand your confusion, and I promise to explain everything, but you must come with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say, crossing my arms. “I saw you, after the truck hit me. You were laughing.”
His nose wriggles. “Of course. After all this time—I finally found you. Laughter is a valid expression of joy, is it not?”
“I—Yeah, but …” Somehow his explanation doesn’t make me feel better. “You were looking for me?”
“Yes, exactly,” he says, and glances out the window, scanning the night sky as if searching for something. “Now, if you’ll please”—he urges me on with his eyes—“we need to be on the move.”
I can’t make sense of any of this. It’s impossible. Like something from a—
That’s it, I’m dreaming. I never made it to the hospital at all. The truck wiped me out and this is m
y brain firing its last thoughts as I lie dying in the road. How else to explain escaping that wreck without a scratch, and then this Grackle guy stepping in and out of the room through an invisible door?
“This is all in my head, isn’t it? None of this is happening.”
He pats his chest and looks again out the window. “I assure you, this is all quite real.”
It’s hard to believe, but still, this doesn’t feel like any dream I’ve ever had. The details are too vivid, my thoughts too crisp, without that hazy feeling that usually comes when I’m dreaming.
“But how? I survived a head-on collision with a truck, and you just walked out of thin air. If I’m not dreaming the only other thing that would explain it is … superpowers or something.”
His eyes flicker with impatience, but surprisingly, he doesn’t deny it.
“Wait, do I have superpowers?”
He takes a frustrated breath. “There’s far more to it than that,” he says, and my mouth drops open.
“I have superpowers,” I mutter. My ears are ringing.
“It’s not superpowers,” he says, louder this time, then immediately seems embarrassed at the sound of his voice. “But I need you to come with me, now, please.”
“You’re here to train me, aren’t you?”
Finally, Grackle stamps his foot and his voice grows stern. “No, now come. We must leave.”
“Just hold it a second. Let’s for a second assume this is really happening. You said you know who I am, and if that’s true, then you’d know there’s no chance I’m going anywhere with you. I don’t know a thing about you.”
This pauses him, and he cocks his head to the side. “What do you want to know?”
I know one thing. “You were at the accident. Why?”
“I have been searching for you for a very long time, and that’s the one place I knew I’d find you.”
I try to parse the logic of that sentence but the pieces don’t fit together properly. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Very little will, and stranger things are yet to come. You must trust me. I promise no harm will come to you, but we must leave this place immediately.” His nostrils flare as he searches the sky once more.
“This place? Do you mean the hospital? Or the city?”
“I mean this world,” he says. “You’re in danger. This timeline is doomed and won’t last much longer.”
I don’t know what that means, but it sounds bad. Any other day I’d figure this guy played too much Dungeons & Dragons, but he just walked through nothing in and out of my room. A truck slammed into me and I survived. None of this is normal.
“What’s happening?” I ask as I slide out of bed. The tile is cool on my bare feet.
“They’ll have felt it. Your manifestation was like a beacon through the chronoverse. They’ll be coming.”
“Who?”
His face grows clouded and he lowers his head. “Thrane and his army,” he says, his voice no higher than a whisper.
Before I can ask what he’s talking about, red lights flash through the window, then explosions shake the building. The power flickers, comes back on for a moment, and then goes out completely. A moment later the generators click on and the room falls into an emergency-light gloom.
Grackle’s face drops and he slowly turns to the window. I step up beside him and look out over downtown. Bodies are falling from the sky in red flashes. No, not falling—floating. Flying out in streams.
Then the shooting starts, lots of it, loud even through the glass.
An alien army, pouring out of thin air.
It’s an invasion.
And they’re here because of me.
7
The Things That Dreams Are Made Of
The invaders form up as they fall through the sky, and move out across the city. A bunch fly up Main Street toward the hospital, close enough I can get a good look at them. They’re wearing bulky black-and-gold armor with black visors covering their eyes and red light washing the lower halves of their faces. The air around them shimmers with distortion as they zip past, like we’re looking at a mirage. They’re not like any soldiers I’ve ever seen.
There are more shots, then the screaming starts. Alarms are ringing everywhere.
I press closer to the window, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing while finding it more and more difficult to remain calm. I try to focus on my breathing but no way that’s working right now.
A car explodes on the street below. Then three more after it, pop, pop, pop.
What is happening right now?
Grackle said I called them when I stopped the truck. When I manifested or whatever. Could that be true?
Is this my fault?
Suddenly my heart’s skipping double Dutch.
“Who are they?” I ask between breaths as I stare at the war zone spreading below. “What do they want?”
The sky tears again, and this time belches out vehicles in red bursts, somewhat like planes but rounder. They hover for a moment before streaking off over the city. Then more machines slash thorough, these ones even bigger than the planes—squashed cylinders with glowing undersides, like flying silver hockey pucks. They spread apart and hover for a moment, then their rounded bellies glow, and a second later lance out with brilliant red beams that explode into the skyscrapers below them.
Heat cooks through the window as buildings explode, slowly totter, then all at once collapse. Smoke pours from everywhere, filling the streets.
The room gets spinny, like I’m going to pass out.
This is a hallucination, a side effect of the seizures. It can’t be real. I squeeze my eyes shut, focus on my breathing, but the noise outside doesn’t stop. This is happening.
It can’t—
I step back, and even with my feet planted firmly on the tile I still feel like I’m falling.
“I changed my mind,” I say as the room twirls around me. “I don’t want superpowers. You can have them back.”
Grackle has grabbed my pants from the cupboard and is shoving my feet into them, and I’m too stunned to stop him. He leaves my pants at my knees and pulls my T-shirt on over my gown, then gets on his knees and lifts my legs one at a time and wedges my boots on.
I bend over on instinct to do the laces, and blood rushes to my head and oddly clears it at the same time. I loosen the laces and tighten them properly, and by the time I’ve got them both done up I can almost think straight.
Then I realize I’m wearing my shirt over my gown. I raise my finger and give it a twirl and it takes Grackle a puzzled minute to figure out I want him to turn around. Once his back is to me I spin my back to him and slip the gown off under my T-shirt one arm at a time.
“What do they want?” I ask as I finish with the gown and drop it on the bed.
“You,” Grackle says. He’s already at the door. “They want you. To make sure you never get the chance to exist.”
That makes no sense. “Well they’re too late,” I say. “I already exist.”
He glances at me then shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says. “Not completely. That is why we must flee.”
None of this makes any sense. Everything in me is trying to tell me none of this is possible, but then again, why shouldn’t it be?
Invaders from another world coming to stop me from existing makes perfect sense today, as much as anything else I’ve been through. At this point it’s simple cause and effect. Today an impossible thing happened—I survived being run over by a truck. Now another impossible thing is happening—we’re being invaded by aliens. How could they not be related?
This is happening. This is real. And somehow it’s all because of me.
It’s my fault. I have to do something to fix it.
“How do we stop them?” I ask.
Grackle’s eyes bulge like I just pooped in my hand and showed it to him. “We don’t.”
“But there has to be—”
Grackle doesn’t let me finish. “They come fa
st and with force, sow confusion, wipe out all resistance around the rift sites—” I try to interrupt but he keeps going. “We have perhaps one hour before they take this world.”
I don’t care. I’m not running away.
“We have to fight them,” I insist. “I’m strong, right? I wrecked a truck with my mind today, and you can, what … teleport? What else can you do?”
Grackle’s head quirks in something like resigned confusion, like he’s had a version of this argument before.
“Wait,” I say, suddenly realizing something. “When you said you came here for me—did you mean someone like me, or me specifically?”
“Jasmin Parker,” he says with fondness in his voice. “You and I were friends, once. Another you, a million worlds ago.” He does know my name. And how could he know my name unless he’s telling the truth? Okay, maybe he read it out in the hall, or on my chart … but I don’t think he’s lying. He isn’t telling the whole truth, but he isn’t lying.
Grackle angles his head, looking me in the eyes. “Right now you’re wondering how I could know your name, if this is some elaborate ruse. But I assure you, this is very real. I also know your first instinct is to fight back, but this is a battle you cannot possibly hope to win. We must flee.”
“People will be out there, doing everything they can—”
“Not for long,” Grackle says, his eyes heavy. “There truly is no alternative.”
I don’t know anything about this person, and I’m not sure if I can trust him, but I don’t think he plans on hurting me. He does seem genuinely keen to help.
“Fine,” I say, brushing past him toward the door and the commotion that lies beyond it, “but we’re finding my dad first, and then we’re going home to get Mom.”
“There’s not time—”
If he knows me, he knows there’s no way I’d abandon my parents. “That’s what we’re doing,” I say. “Take it or leave it.”
I don’t wait for him to answer and stride out into the hall, headed down to the ER. The hospital is nuts. Alarms are going off and people are yelling, filling the hallways, but as I push through the crowd I feel him fall in behind me.