by Chuck Wendig
He reached out and touched her hand. A small gesture. But he saw her smile—a sad smile, to be sure, but a smile—in return. Then he turned to Black Swan and said:
“I want to know where this goes. The flock must survive, but once we reach the number, where do we go from there? Where does this end?”
No text appeared.
A map, however, did. Both on the wall, and now, on Sadie’s satphone, reawakening her connection to the machine intelligence.
And on that map, a town circled by a tightening red circle, one that focused in until it ceased being a circle, and became a red dot.
That town was Ouray, Colorado.
NOW AND THEN
Nowhere, No How
THE GIRL WOKE WITH A gasp.
She launched to her feet, desperate for air.
Meadow grass, soft and swaying, stood tall around her, up to her knees. She tried desperately to remember who she was, where she was, what led her here—but it was like waking up and searching through a dream that had passed in the night. The truth of it felt like wet mud sliding through her fingers: impossible to hold, difficult to contain.
Okay, she thought. Just calm down. Close your eyes and think.
Her eyes closed. In the darkness, she sought out memories—
Bang. A gunshot. A man she recognized stood near her, his jaw gone, blood slicking his shirt. He was nameless, but she knew him, and her heart felt crushed in her chest to see him like this, whoever he was—then in the black void of her memory came more shots, bang, bang, bang. The echoed sound of screams. The dull thud of bodies hitting asphalt.
She gasped again and forced her eyes open.
The grasses swayed back and forth, topped with purple fronds and golden seeds.
In the distance, she saw two mountains, and a small town.
Then something blotted out the light. A shadow darkening, like when a vulture passes overhead. The girl turned to see, and there in the sky moved a strange shape—like a worm, or a snake, fat and massive, bigger than any plane or ship she’d ever seen. It writhed in the sky, matte black, turning on itself at one point, then stretching out languid at others. Lights, she saw, flickered along its underside—an unpredictable, patternless coruscation. Pulse, pulse, flash. It moved out of the way of the sun and the light once again fell to her. It drifted, wingless and silent.
In all other directions, the grass stretched onward to the mountains. The forbidding, jagged mountains.
So the girl did what she felt was expected of her:
She began to walk toward the town.
* * *
—
AS SHE WALKED, she felt out of sync, receiving strange flashes of sound and sight and sensation that did not line up with this place. The girl did not know if these were memories, or if they were something else: She heard the crush of the ocean, saw sidewinders of desert sand sliding across an open highway. She saw mile markers and speed limit signs. She saw a dead man in a car, a gun stuck in his mouth, fixed there by bulging threads and struts of white fungus. She smelled blood. And mold. Crushed juniper, hot tar, seabrine. She heard murmurs of voices, saw smeary faces walking alongside her like ghosts—sometimes they were there, most times they were not, but even when they weren’t, she could feel them still.
For a moment, she lost herself to these sensations—they rose up around her in a cacophony of sound, an overwhelming assault on her eyes, a barrage against her senses, and she had to willfully shut it out.
When she did, she was no longer in the meadow.
She stood above the town.
A wooden sign sat screwed awkwardly into the rock here, and burned into the sign were two words:
OURAY OVERLOOK.
* * *
—
DOWN BELOW, THE small town—oddly quaint, less like something out of real life and more the perfect example of a backlot film set—spread out in the valley between mountains. A main street emerged through the mountainous cleft, cutting through the center of town and then back through the mountains on the far side. Needled pines studded the valley and the rocks. The mountains themselves were striations of color—rust red to gunmetal gray to bands of sandstone yellow. Waterfalls streaked down the sides in the distance.
One thing did not track: The girl could not see the meadow anymore. Here was the town, the valley, and the mountains all around. No meadow existed. Nor could she have been walking across one with this town in sight: so protected by the looming jawbone mountains that one would have no way of seeing this town off in the distance.
The girl looked up. Then behind her.
The black serpent turned in the sky. It knotted upon itself, then untangled its undulating shape before drifting. It called to mind a Chinese dragon from a parade—long and lithe, but this had no head and no tail, and only moments of color pulsing in along its side and its belly.
She got the sense it was aware of her.
Not just aware. Watching her.
She felt afraid of it, but comforted by it in equal measure.
She did not know if it was a friend or if it was a foe.
If it was protecting her, or imprisoning her.
Maybe someone in the town below will know, she thought.
A path wound down from this overlook. It was narrow but well worn. Dry and not muddy. Her eyes followed it down through the trees, toward the town below. She began to walk.
Down, through the trees. Through pines and spruce and fir, through the autumn colors of cottonwoods and quaking aspens. Leaves like flames moving in the wind, the sunlight giving the red, yellow, and orange foliage a firelit glow. Down, down, down, until she set foot between a pair of blue spruces and onto the sidewalk of the street of this strange little town.
She was not alone.
She expected to be, because she very much felt alone—gone was any sensation of being near people, the murmur of voices, the shuffle of shoes, the barely perceptible sound of someone breathing.
And yet there they were.
People milled on the street, walking, talking. Faces in windows, staring out. Some had food. Ice cream. Sandwiches. Others were sitting on steps. Raking leaves, sweeping stoops. The buildings themselves were an odd mix—old Victorian houses mingled with Swiss-style chalets, and she spied a motel, and a little cottage tucked between storefronts, and what looked like a little springhouse next to a wobbly red stable right there in the middle of everything. All of it formed an odd hodgepodge, some curious combination of European grandeur and American quirk.
A part of her wanted to walk forward and meet everyone.
Another part of her was very, very afraid.
This was the fear of setting foot in a new school for the first time: You didn’t know anyone, you didn’t know where to sit, you weren’t sure who would be your friend and who would trip your ass and knock you down as you passed by with a lunch tray full of square pizza and chocolate milk. Yet she also thought: Do I know these people? Some of them looked familiar but she couldn’t place them from where, or what their names were…
The other fear was deeper, more puzzling. It was again a fear that she did not belong, but this time in a grander, more existential way. She didn’t belong and none of them did. This town felt like it didn’t belong. As if it were something unnatural, like the black shadow of cancer on an X-ray.
(The worm turned in the sky above.)
She took one step forward.
And then halted as she realized someone was standing near her.
Very near.
To her left, a girl younger than she was stood by. She had long, straight hair that framed heart-cheeks and a dimpled chin.
“Shana,” the girl said.
“Nessie,” Shana said.
And then it all came back to her. It rushed upon her and into her like a river—the day she woke up and Nessie was gon
e, CDC men in their suits, a handgun in her bag, back roads and forgotten highways, walking until her leg muscles felt like rocks, Pete Corley, the Beast, Marcy and the man with the gun, the hanged man, the mass graves, White Mask, the bridge over the Klamath River, two golden bears, gunshots, her father’s jaw gone missing, and then came a shimmer that surrounded her, became her, and everything sucked up into oblivion with a vacuum shoop—
* * *
—
SHANA WOKE WITH a gasp.
She launched to her feet, desperate for air.
She was in a room. A little iron pellet stove sat in the corner. Behind her was the bed she had been in—pink sheets, frilly white lace on the pillows, like the bed for a little girl’s dolly. The floors were wood. The walls were wallpaper: cream fleur-de-lis on fire-engine red.
Her sister sat nearby. Nessie launched toward her and hugged her.
Shana hugged her back.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said.
“You’re in Ouray,” the girl said. You-ray was how she pronounced it.
“No, I just mean—” Shana pulled away and looked at her sister. Freckled cheeks and brown eyes. “Are you real? Is any of this real?”
Nessie shrugged. “It’s real. But it’s also not.”
“That sounds right,” Shana said.
“It feels like a dream, right?”
“Yeah. I missed you, Nessie. I thought you were lost to me.”
“If I was, now I’m found. And I missed you, too.”
“Nessie, I think Dad is dead.”
Nessie’s brow grew heavy with the threat of tears. “He is. I know. Here, come on, I have something to show you.”
* * *
—
THEY LEFT THE room, which looked like some old, meticulously cleaned and restored inn. Shana thought the design was Victorian, maybe a little art deco, too, but maybe there were some other styles in there, as well—she wasn’t too keyed into architecture or styles by era, but point was, it felt old, with empurpled carpets soft underfoot and creaky wooden stairs, an ornate clock on the wall, gilded mirrors, stained glass. Dark woods, bronze, and iron. It was a place that felt haunted.
Though Shana suddenly worried, What if we’re the ghosts?
Nessie led her down the two flights of steps, through the lobby, out onto the street. She took a sharp turn around the corner, and the road here took a small incline past some little houses and mountain cottages.
Ahead, she saw a small graveyard encased in a narrow wrought-iron fence. “Nessie, what is this?”
“C’mon, I’ll show you.”
Nessie took her into the tiny cemetery, most of the headstones old and fallen to disrepair—the names and dates on some lost.
In the very middle sat a big, tan stone. It wasn’t the prettiest stone, but Shana found it captivating just the same: The strata of colors were flecked with bits of shiny pyrite, and they glimmered when you moved your head this way and that. Someone, and here Shana recognized Nessie’s script even as a carving, had etched a name into the stone:
CHARLIE STEWART, RIP.
The stone sat surrounded by flowers: purple columbines, white laurel, a few devil-red Indian paintbrushes.
“Did you do this?” Shana asked. “You did.”
“Yeah.”
“When? I…I don’t understand. It just happened.”
Nessie did this thing with her face, an old thing that Shana had forgotten about—but now, seeing this expression, she wanted to die for it, she’d missed it so bad. Nessie’s mouth puckered up and twisted off to the side, same way that the Church Lady did in that old SNL skit. It wasn’t something she did to be funny, it was just one of Nessie’s expressions—same as how she always stuck her tongue out when she was handwriting something, or the way when she was frustrated her forehead got those little vees above the nose like hastily sketched seagulls in a cartoonist’s drawing.
“Come on,” Nessie said. “There’re things you need to know.”
* * *
—
THEY SAT ON a park bench. Others passed on the far side of the street, looking over, giving Shana sad, awkward smiles. Nessie waved to them like she knew them. Shana knew them, too—or knew their faces. There walked Keith Barnes, brother to Kenny, some kind of game designer, if she remembered right. And Jamie-Beth Levine, hair in braids just as it was on the road, except now her eyes were alive and she was eating ice cream out of a dripping cone. Some faces she knew but had no names for except nicknames: Birthmark Girl, Surfer Dude, Mister Manypockets because his pants had, well, shitloads of pockets.
They all had been walkers.
And suddenly, Shana realized they still were.
“I’m a sleepwalker,” Shana said. Something she hadn’t really figured out until this very moment.
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s—it’s okay. I guess I’m glad to be with you. I’m glad you’re still in here. I…I still don’t understand it all, though.”
Nessie turned toward her, like she was ready to break bad news—or at least some very strange news. “Okay, so, they’ll explain it soon—you’ll have an orientation, kinda? Julie Barden and Xander Percy will take you and the other newbs and give you the rundown, but I figure we know each other and I can maybe explain some things. The easy things, at least.”
“Classic Nessie. You always knew more than I did.”
“Yeah, maybe?” Nessie made an awkward sorry-not-sorry face. “I’m not trying to be all Missy Smartybutt or anything.”
“No, I’m cool with it. Just tell me what I need to know.”
“Well,” she began, and now Shana could see the ember-spark burning in Nessie’s eyes, because telling people stuff was her bread and butter, boy. “Okay! So. First, this isn’t real, but it’s real. I’m here. But I’m not…physically here? It’s basically like, a simulation—” Shana opened her mouth to ask a question, but Nessie shushed her. “I’ll let Julie and Xander explain it because they have a better handle on it. Point is, we’re not really in Ouray, Colorado, we’re kind of in our own minds. But all our minds are connected! It’s…cool, though honestly maybe a little scary, too. You get used to it.”
“Ooookay.”
Shana very seriously wondered if she would get used to it.
“Also, time here moves…differently. It’s linear, I guess? But it doesn’t feel the same. Again, Julie and Xander can talk more about it, but it explains why to you Dad just died and to me…I’ve been dealing with it for a while. Feels like…weeks. But sometimes it hits me, too, like it just happened, like I’m just watching him…”
Nessie’s voice choked up. She couldn’t continue.
Shana hugged her again.
But then she pulled away. “Wait,” she said. “You saw it?”
“I did. A little.”
“I’m…sorry. I know it’s shitty to ask, but how?”
“You can still see the world sometimes. If you try.”
“Do I even want to?”
Nessie shrugged. “That’s up to you.”
“Could you…see me?” Shana asked.
“I did. Thanks for staying with me.” Nessie snort-laughed—another one of her affectations. Blushing she said, “I also saw you with that boy.”
“Arav, yeah, I had forgotten…”
A new tidal wave of memory crashed down upon her. Arav. Her hands instantly moved to her belly and clutched it. “Oh. Oh God, shit, shit, shit. I’m pregnant, Nessie. I didn’t—I don’t know what happens now.”
Nessie, wide-eyed, showed that she didn’t know, either. “You’re…pregnant? Like, pregnant-pregnant?”
Shana stood and paced. Worry chased her like a pack of wolves. What did that mean for the baby? Nessie leapt up, stood in front of her, sto
pped her from pacing. “This isn’t good, Ness.”
“Okay. Chill. Hold on. Maybe it’ll all be okay.”
“How? How?”
“We’re…meant to survive. That disease, White Mask, it…it can’t touch us in here. It broke my heart because you were out there in the world, and the world was dying like it’s The Stand—I knew I was safe, and you were protecting me, but that meant you’d die. But now? Now you’re here. And if you’re pregnant…well, maybe that means the baby will be okay, too. Maybe Black Swan will protect you both.”
“Black Swan.” She looked up. The dark shape coiled and uncoiled with the crawling speed of drifting clouds. “Is that Black Swan?”
Nessie smiled and nodded.
“Okay,” Shana said. She felt a little calmer. Maybe things would be okay. Even though Dad is still dead. And Arav is gone and dying. The world is going to hell. I don’t even know where Mom is. All those thoughts were thoughts she had to willfully push backward, even though they kept threatening to roll back and crush her.
“I love you, Shana.”
“I love you, too, Nessie.” She gently bonked her forehead against Nessie’s. “So, uh. What happens now?”
“We could go get some ice cream.”
“Is it real ice cream?”
“Does it matter, if it tastes real?”
Shana guessed that no, it did not.
* * *
—
TIME DID INDEED move strangely. Even as she ate the ice cream, still tasting the chocolate on her tongue, still feeling the waffle texture of the cone in her hand, she also found herself sitting inside the Walsh Library, housed inside the building that was also the city hall and the community center and the local fire department. (It also looked, for reasons unknown to her, a lot like Independence Hall in Philadelphia, a place Shana had been to a few times on various school field trips. Maybe it was a quirk of this simulated world.)