Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

  The track drops.

  My stomach lifts.

  We scream through a tunnel—darkness interspersed with bursts of light that only serve to amplify the sense of disorientation and velocity.

  We break out of the darkness and I grip the sides of my chair, forced forward into the restraints as the train slams to a stop.

  The attendant announces, Downtown Station.

  Is this your stop? appears as a hologram six inches from my face above Y? and N?

  Amanda says, “Let’s get off here.”

  I swipe the Y. She does the same.

  Our restraints release and disappear into the seats. Rising, we exit the car with the other passengers onto the platform of a magnificent station that dwarfs New York’s Grand Central. It’s a soaring terminal topped with a ceiling that resembles beveled glass in the way the sunlight passes through and diffuses into the hall as scattered brilliance, projecting twittering chevrons of light onto the marble walls.

  The space is brimming with people.

  The long, croaking notes of a saxophone hang in the air.

  At the opposite side of the hall, we climb a daunting waterfall of steps.

  Everyone around us is talking to themselves—phone calls, I’m sure, though I don’t see any mobile devices.

  At the top of the stairs, we pass through one of a dozen turnstiles.

  The street is crushed with pedestrians—no cars, no traffic lights. We’re standing at the base of the tallest building I’ve ever seen. Even in proximity, it doesn’t look real. With no differentiation from floor to floor, it resembles a piece of solid ice or crystal.

  Pulled along by naked curiosity, we cross the street, enter the lobby of the tower, and follow the signs to the queue for the observation deck.

  The elevator is astonishingly fast.

  I have to keep swallowing to clear my ears against the constant change in pressure.

  After two minutes, the car comes to a stop.

  The attendant informs us that we have ten minutes to enjoy the top.

  As the doors part, we’re met with a chilling blast of wind. Moving out of the car, we pass a hologram that reads: You are now 7,082 feet above street level.

  The elevator shaft occupies the center of the tiny observation deck, and the pinnacle of the tower is a mere fifty feet above us, the apex of the glass structure twisted into a flame-like point.

  Another hologram materializes as we walk toward the edge: The Glass Tower is the tallest building in the Midwest and the third tallest in America.

  It’s freezing up here, the breeze steadily coming off the lake. The air feels thinner sliding into my lungs, and I register a twinge of light-headedness, but whether from the lack of oxygen or from vertigo, I’m not sure.

  We reach the anti-suicide railing.

  My head swims. My stomach churns.

  It’s almost too much to take in—the sparkling sprawl of the city and the profusion of neighboring towers and the vast expanse of the lake, which I can see clear across into southern Michigan.

  To the west and south, beyond the suburbs, the prairie glows in the morning light, a hundred miles away.

  The tower sways.

  Four states—Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin—are visible on a clear day.

  Standing on this work of art and imagination, I feel small in the best kind of way.

  It’s enthralling to breathe the air of a world that could build something as beautiful as this.

  Amanda is beside me, and we’re staring down the gorgeously feminine curve of the building. It’s serene and nearly silent up here.

  The only sound is the lonely whisper of wind.

  The noise of the streets below doesn’t reach us.

  “Was all of this in your head?” I ask.

  “Not consciously, but it all feels right somehow. Like a half-remembered dream.”

  I gaze toward the northern neighborhoods, where Logan Square should be.

  It doesn’t look anything like my home.

  A few feet away, I see an old man standing behind his old wife, his gnarled hands on her shoulders as she peers through a telescope, which is pointed down at the most extraordinary Ferris wheel I’ve ever seen. A thousand feet tall, it looms over the lakeshore, right where Navy Pier should be.

  I think of Daniela.

  Of what this other Jason—Jason2—might be doing at this moment.

  What he might be doing to my wife.

  Anger, fear, and homesickness envelop me like an illness.

  This world, for all its grandeur, isn’t my home.

  It isn’t even close.

  AMPOULES REMAINING: 42

  Down the dark corridor through this in-between place again, our footfalls echoing into infinity.

  I’m holding the lantern and considering what I should write in the notebook when Amanda stops walking.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Listen.”

  It becomes so quiet I can hear the escalated beating of my heart.

  And then—something impossible.

  A sound.

  Far, far down the corridor.

  Amanda looks at me.

  She whispers, “What the fuck?”

  I stare into the darkness.

  There’s nothing to see but the dwindling light of the lantern refracting off the repeating walls.

  The sound becomes louder from moment to moment.

  It’s the shuffling of footsteps.

  I say, “Someone’s coming.”

  “How is that possible?”

  Movement edges into the periphery of illumination.

  A figure coming toward us.

  I take a step back, and as they draw closer, I’m tempted to run, but where would I go?

  Might as well face it.

  It’s a man.

  He’s naked.

  His skin covered in mud or dirt or…

  Blood.

  Definitely blood.

  He reeks of it.

  As if he rolled around in a pool.

  His hair is matted, face smeared and caked so heavily it makes the whites of his eyes stand out.

  His hands are trembling and his fingers curled in tightly, like they’ve been clawing desperately at something.

  Only when he’s ten feet away do I realize this man is me.

  I step out of his way, backing up against the nearest wall to give him the widest possible berth.

  As he staggers past, his eyes fix on mine.

  I’m not even sure he sees me.

  He looks shell-shocked.

  Hollowed out.

  Like he just stepped out of hell.

  Across his back and shoulders, chunks of flesh have been ripped out.

  I say, “What happened to you?”

  He stops and stares at me, and then opens his mouth and makes the most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard—a throat-scarring scream.

  As his voice echoes, Amanda grabs my arm and pulls me away.

  He doesn’t follow.

  Just watches us go, and then shuffles on down the corridor.

  Into that endless dark.

  —

  Thirty minutes later, I’m sitting in front of a door that’s identical to all the rest, trying to wipe my mind and emotional register of what I just saw in the corridor.

  Taking a notebook from the backpack, I open it, the pen poised in my hand.

  I don’t even have to think.

  I simply write the words:

  I want to go home.

  —

  I wonder, Is this what God feels? The rush that comes from having literally spoken a world into existence? And yes, this world already existed, but I connected us to it. Out of all the possible worlds, I found this one, and it’s exactly, at least from the doorway of the box, what I wanted.

  I step down, glass crunching on the concrete beneath my shoes as afternoon light pours through the windows high above, striking a row of iron generators from another era.

  Alth
ough I’ve never seen it in daylight, I know this room.

  The last time I was here a harvest moon was on the rise over Lake Michigan, and I was slumped back against one of these ancient contraptions, drugged out of my mind, staring at a man in a geisha mask who had forced me at gunpoint into the depths of this abandoned power plant.

  Staring—though I had no idea at the time—at myself.

  I couldn’t have imagined the journey.

  The hell that actually awaited me.

  The box is situated in a far corner of the generator room, hidden away behind the stairs.

  “Well?” Amanda asks.

  “I think I did it. This is the last place I saw before waking up in your world.”

  —

  We make our way back through the derelict power plant.

  Outside, the sun is shining.

  Descending.

  It’s late afternoon, and the only sound is the lonely cry of gulls flying out over the lake.

  We hike west into the neighborhoods of South Chicago, walking along the shoulder like a pair of drifters.

  The distant skyline is familiar.

  It’s the one I know and love.

  The sun keeps dropping, and we’ve been walking twenty minutes before it dawns on me that we haven’t seen a single car on the road.

  “Kind of quiet, isn’t it?” I ask.

  Amanda looks at me.

  The silence wasn’t so noticeable out in the industrial wasteland near the lake.

  Here it’s startling.

  There are no cars out.

  No people.

  It’s so quiet I can hear the current running through the power lines above us.

  The Eighty-Seventh Street CTA station is closed—no buses or trains running.

  The only other sign of life is a stray black cat with a corkscrew tail, slinking across the road, a rat in its jaws.

  Amanda says, “Maybe we should go back to the box.”

  “I want to see my home.”

  “The vibe here is wrong, Jason. Can’t you feel it?”

  “We’re not going to learn anything about flying the box if we don’t explore where it takes us.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Logan Square.”

  “Not exactly walking distance.”

  “So we’ll borrow a car.”

  We cross Eighty-Seventh and walk a residential block of downtrodden row houses. No street sweeper has been by in weeks. There’s trash everywhere. Disgusting, splitting bags of it in huge piles up and down the sidewalk.

  Many of the windows have been boarded up.

  Some are covered in sheets of plastic.

  From most hang pieces of clothing.

  Some red.

  Some black.

  The drone of radios and televisions creeps out of a few houses.

  The cry of a child.

  But otherwise, the neighborhood stands ominously silent.

  Halfway down the sixth block, Amanda calls out, “Found one!”

  I cross the street toward a mid-’90s Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera.

  White. Rusting around the edges. No hubcaps on the wheels.

  Through the dirty glass, I glimpse a pair of keys dangling from the ignition.

  Pulling open the driver’s-side door, I slide in behind the steering wheel.

  “So we’re really doing this?” Amanda asks.

  I crank the engine as she climbs into the passenger side.

  There’s a quarter tank of gas remaining.

  Should be enough.

  The windshield is so filthy, it takes ten seconds of pummeling with wiper fluid to scrape away the grime and the dirt and the plastered-on leaves.

  —

  The interstate is desolate.

  I’ve never seen anything like it.

  Empty in both directions as far as I can see.

  It’s early evening now, the sun glinting off the Willis Tower.

  I speed north, and with each passing mile, the knot in my stomach tightens.

  Amanda says, “Let’s go back. Seriously. Something is obviously very wrong.”

  “If my family’s here, my place is with them.”

  “How do you even know this is your Chicago?”

  She turns on the radio and scrolls through static on the FM dial until the familiar warning pings of the Emergency Alert System screech through the speakers.

  The following message is transmitted at the request of the Illinois State Police Department. The mandatory twenty-four-hour curfew remains in effect for Cook County. All residents are ordered to stay in their homes until further notice. The National Guard continues to monitor the safety of all neighborhoods, deliver food rations, and provide transport to CDC Quarantine Zones.

  In the southbound lanes, a convoy of four camouflaged Humvees speeds by.

  The threat of contagion remains high. Initial symptoms include fever, severe headache, and muscle pain. If you believe that you or anyone in your home is infected, display a red piece of cloth in a street-facing window. If anyone in your home is deceased, display a black piece of cloth in a street-facing window.

  CDC personnel will assist as soon as they are able.

  Stay tuned for further details.

  Amanda looks at me.

  “Why aren’t you turning around?”

  —

  There’s nowhere to park on my block, so I leave the car in the middle of the street with the engine running.

  “You’re out of your fucking mind,” Amanda says.

  I point toward the brownstone with a red skirt and black sweater hanging from the window of the master bedroom.

  “That’s my home, Amanda.”

  “Just hurry. And be safe, please.”

  I step out of the car.

  It’s so very quiet, the streets blue in the dusk.

  One block up, I glimpse pale figures dragging themselves down the middle of the road.

  I reach the curb.

  The power lines are silent, the light emanating from inside the houses softer than it should be.

  Candlelight.

  There’s no power in my neighborhood.

  Climbing the steps to the front door, I peer through the large window that looks in on the dining room.

  It’s darkness and gloom inside.

  I knock.

  After a long time, a shadow emerges from the kitchen, trudging slowly past the dining-room table toward the front door.

  My mouth runs dry.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  This isn’t even my home.

  The chandelier is wrong.

  So is the Van Gogh print above the hearth.

  I hear three locks click back.

  The door cracks open less than an inch, and a waft from inside creeps out that doesn’t smell anything like my home.

  All sickness and death.

  Daniela holds a candle that trembles in her grasp.

  Even in the low light, I can see that every square inch of her exposed skin is blanketed with bumps.

  Her eyes look black.

  They’re hemorrhaging.

  Only slivers of white remain.

  She says, “Jason?” Her voice is soft and wet. Tears run from her eyes. “Oh my God. Is it you?”

  She pulls the door open and staggers toward me, unsteady on her feet.

  It’s a heart-crushing thing to feel revulsion for the one you love.

  I take a step back.

  Sensing my horror, she stops herself.

  “How is this possible?” she rasps. “You died.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A week ago, they carried you out of here in a body bag full of blood.”

  “Where’s Charlie?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, and as the tears stream, coughs a bloody sob into the bend of her elbow.

  “Dead?” I ask.

  “No one’s come to get him. He’s still up in his room. He’s rotting up there, Jason.”

  For a moment, she lose
s her balance, then catches herself on the door frame.

  “Are you real?” she asks.

  Am I real?

  What a question.

  I can’t speak.

  My throat aches with grief.

  Tears begin to fill my eyes.

  As much as I pity her, the awful truth is that I’m scared of her, my self-preservation recoiling in horror.

  Amanda calls from the car, “Someone’s coming!”

  I glance up the street, see a pair of headlights rolling down through the darkness.

  “Jason, I will fucking leave you!” Amanda shouts.

  “Who is that?” Daniela asks.

  The rumble of the approaching engine sounds like a diesel.

  Amanda was right. I should have turned around the moment I realized how dangerous this place might be.

  This isn’t my world.

  And still, my heart feels tethered to the second floor of this house in a bedroom where some version of my son lies dead.

  I want to rush up there and carry him out, but it would be my death.

  I move back down the steps toward the street as a Humvee pulls to a stop in the road, ten feet from the bumper of the car we boosted in the South Side.

  It’s covered in various insignia—Red Cross, National Guard, CDC.

  Amanda is leaning out her window.

  “What the hell, Jason?”

  I wipe my eyes.

  “My son is dead in there. Daniela is dying.”

  The front passenger door of the Humvee opens, and a figure in a black biohazard suit and gas mask steps out and sights me down with an assault rifle.

  The voice projected through the mask belongs to a woman.

  She says, “Stop right there.”

  I instinctively raise my hands.

  Next, she swings the rifle toward the windshield of the Cutlass Ciera and walks toward the car.

  Says to Amanda, “Shut that engine off.”

  Amanda reaches across the center console and kills the ignition as the driver of the Humvee climbs out.

  I motion to Daniela, who’s standing on the porch, wavering on her feet.

  “My wife is very ill. My son is dead upstairs.”

  The driver stares up through his mask at the façade of the brownstone.

  “You’ve got the colors properly displayed. Someone will be along to—”

  “She needs medical attention right now.”

  “Is this your car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where were you planning to go?”