by Jamie Nash
And then I die.
I open my eyes but can’t see. I listen but hear nothing. My mouth stretches, but I don’t breathe. I float in a pool of ink. A fog of numbness caresses me.
I’m in the ambulance again. “Don’t open your eyes,” my mom whispers.
I ride a wave of numbness. They must be filling me with some serious drugs. It’s nice. I can stay here forever. But I won’t. I can’t. This is just some dream. A memory. Old news. I will my eyes open.
And see what she doesn’t want me to see.
Mom’s face is swollen like some abstract sculpture. Bruised and bloodied. Buddy has done a real number on her. She won’t press charges. She’ll make excuses. She’ll take him back. In one year, she’ll decide to send me away. She’ll hand me over to complete strangers at a Chuck E Cheese. That’ll start everything. First, there will be the abuse. I’ll run away. I’ll be in court. On drugs. Then the crimes. Unspeakable crimes. It all started because I decided to play hero and stand up to a three-hundred-pound redneck with a Jim Beam problem.
But I wasn’t playing hero.
I was a hero.
Still am.
I close my eyes again. The nothingness cradling me. Begging me to stay. There’s something in my hand. It’s Phantom’s rifle. I’m squeezing the trigger so hard my wrist spasms.
This is the end.
I let go.
I awake to a screaming world. The alarms still blaring. The ship quivering as if it’s moments from ripping into shreds. My vision unblurs. Phantom is on the ground beside me, curled tight in a ball, shaking, whimpering. He’s a feeble old man. The pain has broken him. He trembles and clutches his chest. I’m guessing a heart attack. The big one. He falls on his back, his eyes wide, his mouth is foaming.
Taylor kneels over him, holding his hand. It’s weird, I’d be strangling him.
“We were good together,” Phantom weeps.
“Very good.” She runs a hand across his cheek. “Rest.”
His chest rises a final time, then falls. His eyes lock on the ceiling, watching for angels, or whatever comes next.
Taylor stands and walks toward me, all business, as usual. She picks up the rifle. Her eyes fall on the pain dial. She frowns. “What have you done to yourself?”
I close my eyes. I can’t keep them open anymore.
Taylor’s lips are right at my ear. She whispers, “I have to get to the bridge.”
“The ship is sealing,” I can barely speak. The ship is sealing. There’s been a breach, a radiation leak. It doesn’t take MacGuyver to know it will eat her alive if she steps through.
Taylor stares out into the hallway. Thinking. Problem-solving. She steps back to Phantom and pries the key from his clutched hand. She’s going to override the door, walk through hell, and turn the ship around.
It’s suicide, pure and simple.
She crouches by me and strokes my hair maternally. “You will come back to get me.” Her words are even more monotone than usual. “There are radiation suits in the storage room on the upper levels.” I know the place. It’s where Crazytown found his Captain Crunch, where Phantom murdered him. She continues, “Taylor will be dead but inside her—”
“The Nomad.” Our eyes meet. The wall of lies no longer a barrier between us.
“Once she’s dead, I won’t have much time.” The ‘she’ in question is Taylor. It’s the suit she’s wearing. The temporary form. She continues, “Trigger the autopilot on the W.I.T.C.H. Doctor. It will do the rest.”
I laugh to myself. She’s lied to me this whole time. I’m essentially her prisoner. And now she expects me to bail her out.
“We’ll save them.” She looks at the cargo bulkhead. “All of them. Together.”
She squeezes my hand, a punctuation of her promise. An oath of some kind. Together. It’s the only way. I can’t fly a spaceship. Or fix one. I’m helpless. One hundred percent helpless.
But so is the Nomad.
Neither of us has a choice. Right now, that’s the closest we’ll get to trust.
Taylor walks into the dense curtain of smoke. I watch the dense fog until the smoke burns my eyes. Farewell, Taylor, or Jelena, or whoever you are. I wish I’d met you.
I lie back. The sounds of Armageddon dancing in my ears.
***
AFTERMATH
I wake to the hum of the cryos. The smoke lingers, but the alarms and shrieking metal sounds are mostly gone. The ship isn’t shaking.
The Nomad saved us, somehow.
Maybe Phantom was right, maybe there’s nothing it can’t do.
As instructed, I hunt down one of the bulky spacesuits on the upper level. It takes me almost an hour to put it on. I struggle to seal the helmet for almost twenty minutes alone. With zero confidence my lifesaving suit is going to in fact keep me alive, I override the first bulkhead and step into the contaminated area. There’s a series of steel walls every ten to twenty feet, compartmentalizing the damage, imprisoning the smoke and devastation. Each has an open metal box with a keypad. Each one answers to the same override code.
I find the body about two doors in. Her skin is purpled and freezer burnt like a long-forgotten box of Eggos. Her head is grotesquely warped like the Elephant Man or that kid from Mask. She’s facing me. Her eyes—the only thing not ravaged by the unforgiving havoc of radiation and malfunctioning air pressure—are wide, her bloated arms trapped in a rictus, reaching out until her last gasp.
She was on her way back and almost made it.
Almost.
I stare deep into her dead eyes. Her left pupil flashes, dilating then contracting. A pattern. Three quick beats, then two, then three more.
It’s the code. 3-2-3.
It’s in there.
I consider my options. Maybe someone in the cryos knows something. Maybe I don’t need the Nomad. But the ship’s ravaged. And the last time I tried to wake everyone from their slumber, it ended in a slaughter.
The best chance for everyone is the Nomad.
I hoist Taylor’s corpse up and carry her from the wreckage. I have to strap her to my back to navigate the ladder leading to the upper level. I head right for the control room. The sickbay. The W.I.T.C.H. Doctor.
I activate the auto-mode, strip down, and lay next to Taylor’s lifeless vessel. I close my eyes, cross my fingers, and hum a song. Crazytown’s song. The one about treasure and trolls and the price of adventure.
I remember it now. It’s from a videogame I played long ago on a Commodore 64. Bard’s Tale. It was too complicated for me, so my mom played it with me. It was one of those role-playing games, it took days—it was like a job. But Mom sat with me. We drew maps, and battled monsters, and completed the quest. She became obsessed. I was bored shitless. I loved the normalness. The laughs. The escape.
Things stab and poke and cut me.
I hum the tune from Bard’s Tale.
And remember those days of high-adventure.
And my sweet, sweet mother.
The world begins to fade.
Again, darkness enfolds me.
***
The W.I.T.C.H. Doctor’s green eye stares down at me. I rip the breathing tube from my nostrils. My head aches. My fingers explore my hairline. I find the brand-new, jagged scar, just like the one Taylor and Phantom had. I’m part of the club now.
But nothing else feels different.
I turn. Taylor’s gone. But where? Is she up? Did she escape?
Harvested, a voice inside my head says. An outside voice. An alien one. Thank you for finding me.
“As if I had a choice,” I say.
You don’t have to talk. Just think.
“I like to talk,” I say. “I want to go home.”
Impossible. The ship is wrecked.
“This planet. You know it. It can support us.”
Yes. I believe so.
I sit up from the table and dizziness seizes me.
Careful. You must not be reckless.
I take a deep breath. But even d
oing that feels like I’m following its orders, and it pisses me off. Taylor’s discarded flight suit lays on the ground. Bloody. Ripped to shreds. “You shouldn’t have taken her. Not before I said goodbye.”
That is the problem with humans. They think they are worth so much. But really, there is little value in them. Their time is so short. Their memory so pointless.
“And that’s your problem. You feel like you can live forever.”
You have a lot to learn.
“So do you.”
***
It’s three days later. We stand at the airlock gazing out at the stars. The planet we were once hurtling toward hangs just out of reach. “Why did you bring us to this place?”
We can get help.
Help. Help for me? Or for it?
Both of us.
“How do I know you won’t betray me?”
Because they are my enemies. I need them to think they are dealing with you.
Your enemies, huh? My kind of people. “But why deliver yourself to your enemies?”
To save you, of course. All of you.
It still lies. It’s spent a lifetime manipulating beings with lesser resolve than me. I guess it doesn’t know who’s in charge yet.
You think too highly of yourself.
Damn straight.
I pile every file and videotape that pertains to the personal records of my fellow ‘cargo’ into the airlock.
This will not erase who they are.
They aren’t this. They’re whatever they do next. A wise hero once told me to keep my eyes straight. No side. On top of the stack, I place my own file folder. I’m not that person anymore. I’m the girl that saved humankind. I slam the airlock door shut.
Your memories will not come back. That is not how this works.
I’m banking on it.
I press the release button. The outside hatch opens. All of it is flushed into space. It drifts off into the void. Every crime, every incarceration record, every mug shot, becomes part of the infinite. My sins are erased.
You will always long for the past. It is what your kind do. This was a mistake.
I spot my reflection in the glass. The brown eyes, the short hair, the determination.
***
Do not do this.
I hit the red button. The cryopods bubble. The room quivers. The reverse cryo process engaged. My new family is being born.
They are fragile. You will kill them.
One by one they hatch, fall to their knees.
You will kill me.
The Nomad is finally getting it. Its life is in my hands. I’m not like the others. It can’t control me. I know it’s there. And that gives me power.
You humans always overestimate yourselves.
I help my new friends to their feet. They’re filled with questions, confusion. Who are they? Why are they here? What is this place? Their memories are a random collection of emerging puzzle pieces. They’ll never put them all together. They’ll be lucky to get half.
After giving them drinks and food, I gather them in the control room. I take my place in front of the window that gazes out on the majestic purple planet. I speak to them like they’ve won the race. “You’re astronauts. The best of the best. You were chosen for your greatness. Each of you is a hero.” Some of them cry. Some of them stand up straighter. Pride surges through them. “Right now, our ship has run into some trouble. There may be help on this planet. We’ll survive if we all work together.”
You talk about trust, but you lie to them, too.
I give them a purpose.
And when they find out?
They won’t.
You sound like me.
The assembled group gazes out into the stars.
You think they will accept you? A bunch of crooks, liars, and murderers
My people.
They are dangerous. They are not to be trusted.
Neither are you. Neither am I.
Then what is this about?
I study the emotional faces before me.
“Second chances.”
***
If you’ve read the book, many thanks and please consider leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads.
Before Nomad was a novel, it was a screenplay. Sign up for the author’s NEW RELEASES MAILING LIST and download the ORIGINAL NOMAD SCREENPLAY for free. Click here to get started: www.jamienash.net
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Nomad began life as a wild and crazy screenplay back in the mid-2000’s. My longtime friends at Haxan Films (the makers of The Blair Witch Project) tried hard to put this story onto the big screen several years ago. It never got its motion picture premiere but the story lives on. Without their support and encouragement, this novel (and my writing career) wouldn’t be a thing. So big thanks to Eduardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Robin Cowie and Bob Eick who were the first fans of this story.
Additional thanks go out to my writer’s group in Columbia, MD. They’re the best and put up with my many drafts of this story and all the others.
I’d also like to give a huge shout-out to my Beta readers: Caroline Noonan, Michelle Drumheller and Kevin Perkins. That’s God’s work. Good writer Karma to y’all.
Finally, I’d like to thank Kyle Marie of Literatus Editing & Prose for her eyeballs on this one. If you’re looking for editing services, I highly recommend you contact her at literatusediting.com
BIO
Jamie Nash has written for films like V/H/S/2, Exists, Lovely Molly, and Altered. He’s worked on the Nickelodeon movies Tiny Christmas and Santa Hunters. He’s the author of the middle-grade book The 44 Rules of Amateur Sleuthing and the co-author of Bunk! He lives in Ellicott City, MD.
Want more?
Check out his website www.jamienash.net
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On Twitter @Jamie_Nash
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MIDDLE-GRADE BOOKS BY JAMIE NASH:
THE 44 RULES OF AMATEUR SLEUTHING
Twelve-year-old Mandrake Mandrake is the world's greatest detective. Nobody cares. The cops take credit for all the mysteries he solves, his grandmother is more interested in his “suspect” Algebra grades, and he lives in the shadow of his parents -- the most feared supervillains in the history of supervillainry!
But respect is on the upswing when an all-star team of gumshoes enlists Mandrake to help crack an impossible case -- how did Mandrake's dastardly father escape from an inescapable super-prison? And what evil scheme is he hatching now?
Mandrake has never met his infamous dad. In fact, he’s spent his entire life trying to distance himself from his father’s dark legacy.
But when the other master detectives are captured inside the super prison and all of its criminal occupants are unleashed on the city, Mandrake must save the day by doing the very thing he fears most – trying to understand the twisted brain of the evil mastermind father who ruined his life.
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BUNK!
A Bigfoot photobomb? Mermaids at the Water Park? An attic filled with ghosts?!
It’s not exactly the ‘girl vacay’ Berni had planned out for her last summer before joining the grown-up world of middle school.
But all her dreams of summer fun come to a screeching halt when Uncle Danny whisks her away on a cross-country tour with her eccentric and annoying cousin -- Baxter the Magnificent.
Now, poor Berni is squeezed into a sparkly and very itchy magician’s assistant costume just so she can be stuffed in a box and sawed in-half once a night (and twice on Sundays!) as part of Baxter’s cheese-ball magic show.
Fortunately, she’s not just Baxter’s ‘Lovely Assistant’. She’s also his debunking partner. Baxter solves Mysteries of the Unexplained. Using his knowledge of magic and illusion, along with her smarts and common sense, they’re called into cases to expose the cheaters and tricksters who want to fake us out with monsters, spooks, and space aliens!
But when Baxter’s parents are framed for an imposs
ible robbery using real magic powers, it’s up to Baxter and Berni to travel to the famous magic palace and save Baxter’s mom and dad from being sent to jail!
In the tradition of classic kid-detective stories, crack the spooky cases alongside Berni and Baxter. Every page and picture provides the clues you’ll need. So look sharp, pay attention, and get ready to BUNK! Contains over 100 illustrations which you can color!
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Table of Contents
Nomad
by
Jamie Nash