by Jerry Hart
He closed his fists. His fingers crackled—he felt so stiff. His mind felt empty, too. He was feeling even sleepier because of it. He gazed longingly at the bed; it looked so inviting.
He spun in his chair to stare back at the monitor. The dark screen seemed to hypnotize him. The desire to sleep was growing.
* * *
When Owen entered the bedroom, he saw Chris resting his head on the keyboard. He understood why Chris would be exhausted after what they’d just experienced, but he knew they couldn’t stay here. The police were investigating the explosions that had plagued the building. Owen had been watching the news the whole time to see if they’d reported on any of the things that had happened in the last few hours. Nothing yet, so far.
And the police were no doubt curious about the weapons cache and the dead body of Daniel Hudson. Owen Walters and Chris Weaver would most definitely be questioned about all of that.
Owen called to Chris, who woke instantly. Owen was startled by his blank expression; his eyes were empty.
“You all right?” Owen asked.
Chris didn’t respond. He didn’t even move. It was like he was frozen. He continued to stare at Owen, which sent a chill up his spine.
Suddenly, something started dripping out of Chris’s eyes and down his face. It looked like he was crying, but the tears weren’t clear; they were dark and sappy looking.
“Oh, my god,” Owen said after examining it closely.
Something definitely wasn’t right. He ran to the bathroom to get a towel, but when he returned, Chris was gone. Owen looked around the room. He searched the living room and kitchen, the other bedrooms and bathrooms. The condo was almost as big as theirs, though Mr. Elfman lived alone. Chris was nowhere to be found. Owen ran past the TV where he heard a news report (the reporter sounded excited about something), but he did not stop.
His heart raced. It wasn’t like Chris to just get up and leave like that. Owen walked to an open window (the one they’d crawled through to avoid the cops at the entrance) and looked down, preparing for the worst. He was happy to not see Chris’s body splattered on the street below.
He looked up at the sun, which was slowly rising; something wasn’t right about it. Instead of feeling heat radiating from it, he felt cold. Maybe there was something in the air. He went back to the living room and grabbed the orb from behind the couch. Had Michael and Jason succeeded in their plan, after all?
The orb felt warm and greasy in his hands once again. He felt nothing good could ever come from it. He had succeeded in obtaining it from Michael and Jason, and Michael was pretty much out of commission, but he couldn’t shake the feeling this wasn’t over.
Owen saw D standing in a corner (the robot had been waiting in this condo instead of their own), low blue lights barely visible in the sun-drenched room. In all the excitement, Owen hadn’t noticed the front door open. He ran over to it, but before he could poke his head out to survey the hall, a cop ran by. Owen jumped behind the door, and then slowly closed it. Chris must have gone out that way.
Owen looked back to D. There was no way he was going to leave it—him—there all alone, but he couldn’t very well take him looking the way he did—looking very much like a robot.
* * *
A few minutes later, Owen and D casually made their way out of the condo. D had on a long brown trench coat and a fedora. He was walking with his head down. Owen wouldn’t have been at all surprised if someone found them suspicious-looking.
No one had stopped them so far, so they kept walking until they got to the garage, to Owen’s car. D got into the passenger’s seat as Owen tossed the orb in the back.
“Ready to hit the road, Daniel?” Owen asked.
The robot looked at him but said nothing, which was pretty much what Owen had been expecting. And then Owen caught what he had just said. He’d referred to D as Daniel. He sat there for a moment, contemplating that.
D did stand for Daniel, he told himself, remembering how the boy genius had decided to name his creation.
Owen started the car and drove out of the lot, making sure not to speed; there were cops all over the place. “Keep your head down,” he told D.
The robot did as it was told. Owen turned right on Calhoun. As he did so, he looked to where the parking garage had collapsed. There were people crowded all around it, and it appeared some police officers were fighting them back. Owen turned right on the next street, intending to circle back to the collapsed building. He had a crazy thought and wanted to check to make sure.
As he approached Calhoun and 4th, he saw the crowd of people better. Most of them looked pale and weird, much the way Chris had appeared to Owen moments ago. Four police officers kept pushing them back, but the people were insistent upon approaching the site.
That’s when Owen thought he saw who he was looking for: Someone who looked a lot like Chris was among the crowd. Before Owen could get a better look, a cop noticed him and approached his car. His badge said “Patrick Fisher.”
“Sir, you’re going to have to move along,” the officer said.
Owen nodded and drove off, fearful of the officer noticing his robot companion. He got onto the freeway, trying to remember the way to his destination, but his thoughts suddenly dwelled on Chris again. Where was he? Owen kept asking himself.
As he drove down the freeway, he kept glancing back at the orb. There was someone who might be able to tell him what it truly was, someone with strawberry-blond hair, who could tell you anything you wanted to know, as long as you were completely honest with her. And Owen intended to be as honest as he possibly could this time.
He turned on the radio and settled in for his trip to Baker, to see Nikki. As he drove, he thought of all the things he would ask her.
Before he even knew what he was doing, Owen took the nearest off-ramp and found himself at Trident River. He sat gripping the steering wheel for a long time before he finally got out and took the orb with him. He told D to stay where he was, then trotted down the hill to the river.
He stood and watched the water rush by. All he could think about was Chris, Daniel and Alyssa. They were gone. His friends. His family. Taken away by the brothers. It wasn’t fair.
Owen was compelled to go back and look for Chris; he’d only walked off, after all. He wasn’t dead. Owen had to go back for him.
But, no. He couldn’t find Chris. He’d searched everywhere, and cops were swarming the area. It was too dangerous. Owen looked at the orb in his hands, hating it more than he’d ever hated anything in his life.
He squatted down, and then beat the orb against the paved path on which he stood. Over and over.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” he screamed. If anyone nearby heard, so be it.
With each pounding it took, the orb let out a deep thump Owen could feel in his heart. He then tossed the orb into the river, glad to be rid of it. He watched as it was carried away with the current. Strangely enough, the orb was going slower than the water, as if it were resisting.
Owen immediately jumped into the river and swam after it. He wasn’t sure why, at first. He only knew he had to get it back. The current pulled him fast and he almost went straight past the orb, toward a spillway. But he reached out and grabbed it in both hands.
His progress in the river slowed. The orb was like a life vest. Owen swam to the edge of the river and climbed out, huffing and puffing. And then he cried. He cried because he wanted to get rid of the orb but couldn’t. He had to find out what it was and why his friends had been killed over it.
He stood and watched the river again. He wondered what he would do when he found Jason and Michael again. Would he kill them, or turn them over to the police? Owen chose in his mind, and the decision scared him.
He climbed the hill back to his car. Fifteen minutes later, he was out of San Sebastian. He did not look back.
And though he didn’t glance at the city he’d called home for two years, he didn’t think he would stay away forever. He just hoped he could put things
right before he returned.
Chapter 21. Prelude to Chaos
Officer Fisher tried as best as he could to keep the crowd back, but they were insistent. They were also weird. It was five in the morning, and the people before him all had sleepy, blank faces, as if they’d just woken up.
Almost everyone was in pajamas—except one guy. He was wearing a black hoodie and blue jeans. His long, curly brown hair was a mess and there were dark tear tracks running down his cheeks. He was fiercely pale, and his face was the blankest of all, if that was possible.
“All right, people,” Patrick barked, “I’m giving you to the count of three to get back. One. Two. Thr—”
It was like a hypnotist had snapped his fingers to call his victims out of a trance. The crowd around Patrick shook their heads and looked around, dazed. A few of the people asked each other where they were.
“Are you in need of assistance?” Patrick asked them, concerned. What he was witnessing was definitely not normal.
The people declined his offer and walked away; they seemed to know where they were now. Others were astonished at the destruction of the garage, like they were just now seeing it. After Patrick repeated that they needed to get back, they did. Thankfully.
All except one man, the one in the black hoodie with the dark streaks on his cheeks. Patrick wondered if it was an early Halloween costume, or if the man was sick.
“Are you in need of assistance?” Patrick asked him. The guy, who looked vaguely familiar to the officer, stared at him for a moment, his head tilted to the side like a dog. He then looked at the destruction behind Patrick for a brief moment, and then turned sharply, as if he had just heard something. He was looking in the direction of Trident River, Patrick noted.
Then he walked away, leaving Patrick more confused than ever.
Moments later, someone came running up to him, waving her arms over her head. She looked to be in her early forties, with tears running down her eyes. “Please, you have to help me. It’s my ma. Something’s wrong with her.”
The woman tugged on Patrick’s arm. “It’s okay, ma’am,” he said gently. “Is your ma hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, what’s your name?” he asked her.
“Jessica.”
“Okay, Jessica. Take me to your ma.”
Patrick followed Jessica to a townhouse a block away. They passed a few people who still looked dazed, like they’d just awoken from a hypnotic state. Jessica’s townhouse was on the ground floor, and as they ran down the hall, Patrick saw a few people stick their heads out of their doors. One man noticed Patrick’s uniform and asked what was going on.
“Everything’s under control, sir,” he replied as he continued to follow Jessica.
At last they reached her mother’s place. The door was closed, and Jessica retrieved a key from her pocket. “I had to lock the door,” she said cryptically. “She’s tied up right now, but just in case, I didn’t want anyone going in to check on her.”
“Why not?” Patrick asked.
“Because I was afraid she’d hurt them.”
Patrick was about to ask her to elaborate on that when both of them heard a crashing noise from inside. Jessica had just undone the lock when Patrick pushed the door open and drew his gun. The townhouse consisted of a bottom floor and a second floor. The staircase was right by the front door.
As soon as he stepped in, Patrick noticed the living room was in shambles; it looked like a great deal of fighting had gone on. There were broken plates and vases; the stuffing had been ripped out of a tasteless orange sofa on the left side of the living room; the TV, on the right, had a hole in the screen.
“What happened here?” Patrick asked Jessica.
The woman shook her head as tears fell down her cheeks. “This morning, we heard all this noise down the street. I moved here to take care of my ma because she was sick. When I went into her room to check on her, I saw she wasn’t breathing. I was about to call an ambulance, but then there was this weird explosion—it made my ears hurt.
“And then, Ma jumped up out of the bed. She tried to go outside all of a sudden, and I tried to stop her. She threw me around like a doll; she was so strong. I hit her on the head with a vase, and that stunned her out for a minute. I tied her up.”
That was a heck of a story, and Patrick found himself believing it completely. Worse yet, it reminded him of what he’d seen at Daniel Hudson’s condo earlier. Patrick could have sworn he saw the dead boy blink just before being sealed up in the body bag. No one else had seen it, though, and the last thing Patrick wanted was to be considered crazy, unstable.
Daniel’s body hadn’t moved at all during its trip to the medical examiner’s van, which Patrick made sure of. He even tried to see the body one more time before they loaded it in, but there had been no time—he’d had to get to the garage.
But now, here was this story of a mother who’d died just before the strange pulse that rocked the city, and then came back to life. Was it a coincidence? Had Jessica been mistaken about her mother having died in the first place? Maybe the old woman had just looked dead.
None of those questions explained the state of the townhouse. Had Jessica really been thrown around like a rag doll? He studied the woman and saw she did look a tad beaten up. Her clothes were probably masking the majority of the damage.
“Where’s your mom?” Patrick asked her.
“In there.” Jessica looked straight ahead to a room just past a tiny kitchen. The door was closed.
Patrick approached the door, placed his hand gently on the knob, and turned slowly.
Inside the fairly large room, tied to a four-poster bed, was Ma. She was wearing a long blue dress. Jessica had tied her mother’s arms and legs to the posts with tape, rope and clotheslines.
Patrick looked at Jessica, who was almost old enough to be his own mother. She was also more terrified than any adult he’d ever seen. Aside from being a cop, he felt a natural need to protect her, even if it was from her own mother.
He lowered his weapon as he approached the bed. “What’s her name?” he asked Jessica.
“Ethel.”
“Hello, Ethel,” Patrick said gently to the old woman. She was staring at him with a blank expression. Dried blood stained her forehead. “I hear there was some trouble earlier this morning. Is everything okay?”
Ethel said nothing.
“Your daughter says you attacked her. Is that true?”
No response.
“I see you’re hurt. We should get you to the hospital. Does that sound good to you?”
“Huh.”
Her first word, though it was barely a word, and it was barely audible.
“I said we should get you to the hospital so the doctors can look at you.”
“Huh.”
Was she asking Patrick what he was saying, or was she merely groaning? It sounded like the latter.
“Huh.”
It was more insistent this time, more of a grunt than a groan. Patrick backed away, pulling Jessica with him. Ethel tried to reach out to them with her left arm, but it caught short on the rope tying her to the post. She jerked her arm and the post snapped off the headboard. Patrick and Jessica ducked; the flying post almost struck them.
“Back up!” Patrick ordered Jessica, who complied.
Ethel was breaking free from her bonds. Patrick pulled his gun again and pointed it toward the open bedroom door. After what felt like an eternity, the old woman appeared in the doorframe, looking like some kind of demon in the dim room.
“Ethel!” said Patrick. “I don’t want to have to hurt you!”
He couldn’t believe he was saying these words at all, let alone to an old woman. Ethel reminded him so much of his grandma, who was still very much alive herself. He wanted to call her at that moment and tell her he loved her.
Ethel lunged for Patrick and Jessica. The two of them fell backward as Patrick pulled the trigger. The bullet shot into the ceiling, raining plast
er onto their faces. Ethel was on top of Patrick a second later, trying to rip the gun from his hands.
“Mom, stop it!” Jessica screamed from directly next to them.
Ethel looked at her daughter with a blank expression for a moment. “Huh,” she moaned.
Patrick just lay there, too afraid to move. Ethel held his wrists in steel grips, and he felt they would snap any second. How could she be this strong?
“Jessica?” Ethel said quietly, her blank expression becoming a little less so.
The woman’s grips on Patrick’s wrists decreased slightly, but she didn’t let go completely. It was at that moment Patrick noticed Ethel seemed absolutely still, as if she wasn’t breathing. She was as still as a statue on top of him. He thought of checking her pulse, even though she was clearly alive. The thought of it made him want to laugh, but he couldn’t shake the feeling the woman on top of him wasn’t breathing.
Before he could make any move, Ethel collapsed on his chest. Patrick checked her pulse then; she had none. He doubted she’d had one at all during his time with her.
* * *
Chris approached the waters of Trident River and stared blankly at the current. The orb had drawn him here, but as he looked around, he saw nothing.
Where was Master? Master had to tell him what to do.
Chris was forced to stand there and wait, not knowing what else to do. He didn’t even feel in control of his own body as it followed the call of the orb. He was certain it had called him here, to the river. He could even feel traces of its energy signature in the air around him.
But where was it now?
So many questions swirled through his cloudy head at that moment, the most important being: Where was Owen?
No. Where was the orb? Who was Owen, anyway? No one important.
He’s my best friend, Chris answered himself. Where am I? What am I doing? Where is Owen?
The smoke started to clear from his head a little, making it easier to think. At that moment, he remembered what had happened to him. He had that shape-shifter’s venom coursing through his veins.
But what did that have to do with the orb?