Stevens picked up the gun. “Make a decision, Dylan.”
“Stevens, you know we can’t let them walk out of here,” the other man said.
“Give me a second, Murphy,” Stevens replied. “They want to see their friend get help.”
“You know they can’t leave here.”
Dylan turned to the man named Murphy. “You have no right to threaten us! When my friend gets better he’s going to report this shit.”
Murphy frowned. “No. He isn’t.” He turned his gun toward Matt.
“Stop!” Stevens called.
Murphy fired three shots. Matt’s body convulsed from each impact.
“No!” Dylan screamed. He heard Emma screaming too.
“Now here’s what’s going to happen,” Murphy said. “The two of you are going to sit against the wall and stay there until we decide what to do with you.”
Dylan moved toward Murphy. “Don’t try a goddamned thing, kid,” Murphy said. “I will blow your ass away just like your friend if you move a muscle toward me. You know I mean it.”
Dylan felt rage and terror and sorrow ripple through every part of his body. He felt Emma take hold of his shaking hand in one of hers, and together they walked to the wall and slumped down against it.
“This wasn’t necessary,” Stevens said to Murphy. “We’re going to have to explain this.”
“No. That won’t happen, Stevens. We can have one of the others erase them. Nobody will need to know they existed at all.” Murphy walked out the door. “I’ll be right back after I call this in, Stevens. Don’t let them move.”
Stevens turned to Dylan and Emma. He carried his gun but did not aim it at them. “I’m sorry for what happened,” he said. “I wanted to give you kids a chance to get away but you just wouldn’t listen.”
“How could he do this?” Emma cried. “How do you think you will get away with this?”
Stevens sighed. “We can do anything we want when it comes to this place. Protecting its secrets is all that matters.”
“We’ll do whatever you want,” Dylan said. His voice trembled and tears ran down his cheeks. “Just please take my friend out of here. Let us reset this.”
Stevens considered. “You’re asking me to trust that you’ll ride out the course of the full moon without traveling through the portal. Without interfering with anything at all.”
“I’m not asking you to trust me,” Dylan said. “I’m asking you to save a life that doesn’t have to be lost.”
“I don’t know about this,” Stevens said.
“Please,” Emma begged. “Please do the right thing. We never wanted anything more than to help people who were lost here. We won’t do anything to mess things up more.”
Stevens seemed to consider, but Murphy arrived back in the room, gun drawn.
“Office is very clear, Stevens,” Murphy said. “They go to the Forge.”
Murphy reached behind himself, not lowering his gun or taking his eyes off of Dylan and Emma. He shut the door, then opened it again, revealing the quiet, bright daytime of August 10, 1989.
“What are you going to do with us?” Emma asked.
“Personally, I’d shoot the both of you like your friend,” Murphy said with venom in his voice. “But the office wants you detained, so that’s where we’re going.”
“Detained where?” Dylan asked. He tried hard not to look at Matt’s body in its pool of blood on the floor. “You’re going to strand us in 1989?”
Murphy laughed. “You think this is 1989? You think you found a time machine? You are so far over your head it shocks me, kid.”
“Just do what we tell you and this won’t get any worse,” Stevens said.
“You’re really going to go along with whatever he does?” Emma protested. “After seeing him shoot a defenseless kid?”
Stevens frowned. “I begged you to stay away. Now I’m begging you to do what we ask.”
He looked to Murphy, who nodded approval. Stevens walked to the back wall of the store and slid his hand along the surface in a circular motion. Suddenly, a section of the wall only slightly larger than the man’s hand depressed. There was a click, and the entire section where Dr. Mike’s doorway had once been sank inward and slid to the side.
“Get up,” Murphy said. “We’re going for a walk.”
“What about Matt?” Dylan asked in a cracking voice, tears continuing to overflow his eyelids.
“He’s not going anywhere. I’m not going to tell you again. Get up and move.”
They did as Murphy said. Emma took hold of his hand, and he squeezed hers. They walked to the doorway, the agents behind them.
As curious as he was about the newly revealed door and whatever lay beyond it, Dylan couldn’t shake his horror over Matt’s senseless murder or his terror at having a gun pointed at his back at that very moment. He felt sweat trickle down from his forehead.
They crossed the threshold. Dylan had expected to see the back room of the pharmacy and Dr. Mike’s office, but instead a dimly lit corridor maybe thirty feet long extended in front of them. The entire hall looked made of metal, and at the end was a blank wall.
“Walk down to the middle,” Murphy said.
They walked, and he heard the clatter of Murphy’s and Stevens’s footfalls on the metal surface behind them.
There was another click and Dylan turned in time to see that Murphy had pushed a button in the middle of one wall. The grinding sound of an engine started, and the room vibrated slightly.
“We’re moving!” Emma whispered. Sure enough, the hallway seemed to rotate. The door they had just entered moved out of sight. Dylan saw darkness through the opening. Finally the hall latched into place.
“Move,” Murphy said. “Back down the way we came.”
They walked back to the end of the hall. The opening seemed to let out on a ramp angling downward. Emma walked out first and gasped.
“What is it?” Dylan asked. He stepped out next to her and saw what had shocked her. The ramp was actually a series of ramps and bridges moving in all different directions in a vast cavern. Dylan couldn’t see the end of the space in any direction. At all different points of the web-like network of structures, there were platforms and in some cases buildings. A multitude of people wandered around the enormous space. Dylan counted roughly a hundred before he gave up. By his estimation there were at least a thousand that he could see.
“What the hell is this place?” he asked.
“This is the Forge,” Stevens said. “This is where you’re going to be staying for a while, I’m afraid.”
Chapter Nineteen
For so long, there was nothing but darkness. Jim’s mind existed in that void. Despite no physical body and no true ability to sense anything, he was able to sense nothingness; a palpable, thick emptiness that surrounded and infiltrated his being.
He had no concept of time; no idea how long he existed in that state. His thoughts came in broken images with no words attached to them. In most of those, he saw Liz, but the more he tried to hold on to those visions, the more they were shoved away by the pictures of the white farm house, the red clothing. The name Martin Hyatt.
Jim pushed back against those images with everything he had. He fought the name that tried to pry into his brain and force out his true identity.
When he emerged again in the field that would one day become his home, he sat up and breathed deeply. The air felt good and clean, but just being able to use his lungs at all felt novel and empowering. He remembered who he was, and knew that was no small victory. The very world wanted him to embrace the self it had selected for him. He thought were it not for Liz and his unborn child, he would not have the will to fight. He wondered if even that would last him through many more cycles of rebirth.
He had come so close to escaping the time trap before the purple sky had eaten him again. He remembered standing at the top of the hill and watching the teenagers push Clyde into the room. He hoped Clyde had made it home. There was some comfo
rt in that. Hadn’t he come all this way to see that happen?
He got up and stretched. The sense of having done all of this so many times before gave him a chill, but he shook his head and began to walk. He knew the way to the store, having done it before, but he also knew he was totally at the mercy of time. He didn’t know what it was that forced resets and brought him back to the field, but he knew it could happen unexpectedly. He had to keep his goal prominent in his mind. In that way, the resets wouldn’t push him too far away from his destination.
He trudged along, feeling his muscles unwind. He could remember having had no body in the purple nothing, and he reveled in the ability to move, to walk, to feel the breeze tickle the hairs on his arms.
By some miracle, the resets didn’t come. He continued on, mile after mile, and made his way to the top of Butler Avenue. He looked down, expecting to see a repeat of the scene with Clyde and the two teenagers, but he didn’t see them. Other people wandered the street, and cars moved by in their pre-programmed pattern.
He continued down the street. The closer he got to the store, the more excited he became. Soon, he was running, even though much of his energy had already been spent and he knew he would pay for such exertion.
He stopped in front of Maverick Supplies and Drugs. The cursed store was operating just fine, showing no sign of the evil that it represented. Jim turned to the doorway and felt his heart sink. He couldn’t see into the vacant store. Only the past version of Maverick’s was visible.
Jim stood on the sidewalk, considering his options. Could he go into the 1989 version of the store? Probably, but he didn’t see how that would help him.
“Hey there, friend.”
Jim turned and saw Roland standing in the doorway of Adventure Comics and Games. Jim raised a hand.
“Want to come in and look around?” Roland offered. “It’s a hot one already and you look like you’ve been feeling the effects.”
He’s a hell of a salesman, Jim thought with respect. He was exhausted, and there was no telling what his next move should be. Until he spotted Clyde, or the vacant shop or whoever it was who had arrived in it, he had no plan.
“Yeah, I’ll come in for a little,” he said.
“Good choice!” Roland said cheerfully.
“So what brings you down this way?” Roland said. “And for the love of all that is holy why didn’t you take a car?”
“I was looking for a friend,” Jim said. “And my car’s in the shop.”
“I see. Your friend wasn’t here?”
“No. Not that I can see, anyway.”
“Friends, right? Can’t live with them, probably shouldn’t kill them.” He laughed and wheezed.
Jim started to laugh politely along, but a memory of Detective Magen flashed in his mind and he quieted immediately.
“Sorry, did I say something that upset you?” Roland asked. “I run my fat mouth a mile a minute, so don’t mind me.”
“Nah, it’s okay,” Jim said. “How well do you know Dr. Mike?”
“Hmm. I’d say I know him about as well as anybody working here. What I mean is we’ve been acquaintances a long while now, but he never really lets anybody get too close. Especially when it comes to his work.”
“What do you know about his work? Other than the normal pharmacy business, I mean?”
“Well, he’s always dabbling in his back room. Testing something that he says has to do with ‘unusual properties’ of the place. His words, not mine. I’m fairly certain he’s gonna blow the whole block straight to hell one of these days, but so far so good. Can I ask what your interest is in Dr. Mike’s operation? You seem to know more about it than most people who come wandering around.”
“I’ve heard some rumors,” Jim said. “Just found it kind of interesting.”
“It is interesting,” Roland said. “I’m into that kind of nerdy pseudo-science stuff so it all gets me excited.”
Jim felt suddenly nauseated, like the room was rolling.
“It is interesting,” Roland said. “I’m into that kind of nerdy pseudo-science stuff so it all gets me excited.”
What the hell?
“I’m sorry,” Jim said. “Did you just repeat yourself or am I losing my mind? I felt sick for a moment there.”
“Um…no, don’t think I repeated anything,” Roland said. “You maybe spent a little too much time out in the heat, buddy.” He studied Jim’s attire. “You work at Shady Pines? I’d think you’d be there right now, with the camp season wrapping up.”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, I’m just running a little late.”
“Uh huh.”
Jim thought Roland didn’t believe anything he was saying, but what difference did it make anyway? Sooner or later someone would trigger a reset and who the hell knew where he’d end up then?
“Listen, have you seen a guy hanging around this block? Like a homeless man. All ragged looking. Named Clyde.”
Roland thought about it, rubbing his hand on his multiple chins. “Nah. Can’t say I have. Friend of yours?”
“Yeah, actually. That’s what I was saying about why I came down here. I’m looking for him.”
“I see. Sorry I can’t help you with that.”
The world spun around again.
“I see. Sorry I can’t help you with that.”
“Ugh.” Jim stumbled and landed on one knee. He put his hands on his head.
“Why don’t you sit down over on that stool,” Roland said. “You look like shit, my man.”
“Okay.” He let Roland lead him by the shoulder to a stool and he sat down.
“I’ve got some water in the back,” Roland said. “Do you want me to call anyone?”
“No…I’m just a little out of sorts.”
“You know, I’m not sure I got your name. I’m usually a little more polite than that. I’m Roland, by the way.”
“It’s okay. I’m…” Martin, his voice said. “I’m…”
His warring identities screamed in a chorus of madness. Jim tumbled back off the stool.
“Sir? Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
He heard a muffled voice that sounded like it was coming to him through a pillow wrapped tightly around his head. He struggled to open his eyes and succeeded in seeing a tiny sliver of light before he was gone again.
“Sir, I need you to wake up.”
The voice called to him again, and this time he was able to open his eyes in a flutter, blinking against the bright overhead fluorescents.
He saw a man’s face looking over him with great concern. “I’m Dr. Mike,” the man said. “You’ve passed out and had a bit of a nasty fall, but I think you’re going to be okay.”
He groaned. “How long was I out?”
“Not all that long. Roland called me right after you fell. We got you over here and I’d say you were out for about ten minutes after that. Can you tell me your name?”
He thought about it. “I’m not really sure,”
Dr. Mike’s face wrinkled. “You aren’t sure? Roland did say that you were trying to tell him your name when you cried out in pain. I admit we looked through your pockets. You’re Martin Hyatt. Judging from your attire you’re a director at a day camp. But I’m wondering how you came to be wandering all the way down in Ambler.”
“I really don’t know.” He had a sense that Martin Hyatt wasn’t exactly who he was, but his identity was foggy. He remembered seeing Roland while looking for a friend, but he had no recollection of the friend’s name or why his search had brought him to Ambler. All those thoughts were a blurry mess, though whatever headaches he had experienced seemed to be gone.
“Can you sit up?” Dr. Mike asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Here, let me help you,” the man said.
He felt the man’s hands grasp his own and pull gently. He moved in the direction he was being pulled and rose up to a seated position.
He looked around and saw he was on a couch in a tiny office. Degrees and certificat
ions lined the walls.
“This is my place,” Dr. Mike said. “Not a whole lot of people ever get to see back here. I’d love to say it’s my office but it also serves as my home more often than not.”
“Okay. Thanks for helping me.”
“Wasn’t really anything I did. It’s this place.” He opened his arms wide. “This whole store. There’s something special about it. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy working here so much. There are opportunities here to do unbelievable work. Harnessing the healing properties of this location…that’s just one aspect of it.”
Dr. Mike had been very cautious in his tone when he first started speaking, but his excitement about the store bubbled over as if the man couldn’t even contain it. Wasn’t there something about that store? There was the shadow of a memory but it was as blurry as everything else.
“Why don’t you just rest for a little,” Dr. Mike said. “I closed down the store for a few minutes while I got you situated, but I really do need to open back up. If you need me, just holler.”
Dr. Mike disappeared from view. A door opened and closed, and there was the distinct sound of a lock.
Chapter Twenty
The agents led Dylan and Emma down one winding path after another. Dylan’s legs burned with exhaustion but he knew the risk if he didn’t listen. He remained certain of one thing: the agents would pay for what they had done. He wasn’t so foolish as to think he could turn on them now. That would risk his own well-being as well as Emma’s. He was going to have to bide his time and learn exactly what situation they had been placed in. Then, when the moment was right, he would take whatever action he needed to take.
Emma remained as quiet as him. He looked over at her occasionally. Usually her eyes wandered with curiosity and awe, but every once in a while they met his. When that happened, he could see the fear underlying all the other emotions, and he tried to send her his support and love without using his words.
They came to a building built of concrete and metal. It was three stories tall and wider than most of the structures they’d walked past. A heavy gate of some dark metal was set into the wall near the right side. It was the only opening Dylan could see, and in that way it reminded him of the outside of the cursed store.
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