As did he.
And then, the window in her apartment exploded.
The blast knocked them both to the ground. Outside, they could hear the continuing turmoil. Bawls of horror. The rumble of bombs. The screeches of death.
“Come on!” They stood, clutching each other’s hand. “We have to get out of this city!” And they raced back up the escalator, crammed into the elevator, rode down the tower, and fled out into the battleground toward the solitary bridge out of Paradiso.
Beverly Pierceheld her daughter’s hand. Clutched it tight. She closed her eyes and whispered to herself. Praying. Logan pressed his face to the glass.
Inside, there was yet another jolt of electricity. Sam’s body jerked.
“We’re losing him!”
“Then hit me again!”
Beeeeeeeeeeeeppppp….
They fought their way through the mob. The tendril of a Sentry Unit coiled itself around Sam’s arm, but Delaney hurled a brick at its eye and it whizzed away, defeated. They finally reached the bridge out of the city. A vast, unending wasteland lay on the other side.
The bridge was deserted.
“Why isn’t anyone else leaving?”
“I…I don’t know…” Delaney looked back, confused. No one else was trying to escape. Everyone just seemed happy to fight. “Maybe they don’t—”
The ground shook. A crack ripped through the street as several buildings collapsed in the distance, throwing up a mushroom cloud of dust, smoke and debris.
“Let’s go!”
They raced across the bridge. Their legs burned. The grumbling fracture pursued them. The structure buckled and groaned. Just as they passed the halfway mark, it snapped in two. Delaney fell and started to tumble downward, but Sam grabbed the shoulder of her t-shirt and pulled her back up. They frantically climbed the crumbling slope and leapt into the air just as the bridge completely gave, dropping into the water below.
“Stabilizing!” the doctor announced with a weary smile as Sam’s unconscious body relaxed, settling onto the mattress.
Beverly let out a nerve-racking sigh of relief. Logan clunked his forehead against the glass, finally exhaling.
“He’s okay!” The doctor wiped sweat from his brow. “For now...”
Beep. Beep. Beep…
They rolled to the ground, kicking up sand, just barely making it over. They stood and looked at the city across the waterway as it tore itself apart to the music of shouts, sirens, and even gunfire. More towers caved in. More fire erupted. Smoke billowed in wide plumes that spiraled into the clouds.
“What’s gonna happen now?” Delaney asked, staring at the place she once called home.
“I don’t know. I guess—”
It all happened too fast.
There was a screech. A rumble. Then, a black shadow overtook them, knocking Sam down. When he looked up, he could see the dragon making its escape overhead.
And Delaney, eyes closed, was wrapped in its back talons.
“No!” He gave chase, sprinting along a tattered highway that ran through the desert. “It’s me you want!” He picked up a rock and threw it, but it didn’t come close. “Come back! Please!” The creature flailed its muscular wings, becoming smaller and smaller.
Sam dropped to his knees, hands on his head. He wept in futility. “Take me instead!”
But it was too late. It had already faded over the horizon.
16
The Companion
The rain gave the streets a distinctive sheen. Thunder purred in the sky overhead. New York City was particularly quiet tonight. Almost eerily. There weren’t many cars. A lot of the shops were closed. The sidewalks were dim.
Delaney was wearing a nice black dress and a white pea coat. A man strode next to her, an arm around her shoulder. He was well-dressed. A good head or two taller than Sam. Easy to spot in a crowd. He picked food out of his teeth with his free hand. “That wasn’t as good as I thought it was going to be for the price.”
“That’s New York. Why you think I’m livin’ in a closet?”
He shrugged. “That’s your choice.” He eyeballed the decrepit buildings and graffiti-laden walls. “You chose to come here.”
“I had my reasons.”
“I know. And I guess there’s nothing I can say to make some of those things up to you.” He raised his left hand. “I still wear it, you know.” There was a gold wedding band at the base of his ring finger. “Reminds me of happier days.”
She didn’t reply. They reached the awning outside her apartment.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asked.
“I…” she hesitated. “I’m sorry, I just—”
“I drove fifteen hours to see you. What’s that say?”
“Look, it’s just—”
“Just kiss me.”
She flinched. “What?”
“You and I both know that you wouldn’t have agreed to meet me tonight if there wasn’t something there, Del.” He put his hands in his pockets.
“I…”
“What? There someone else?” He was getting aggressive. His words became harsher. More menacing.
“No, no, I mean…I thought that maybe…”
“Who?” He looked around. “Where is he? I don’t see him here.”
More thunder. Silence.
“Just so you know, I’m not leaving here till I get a kiss.”
“Then you’re in for a long night.” She turned around to open her door, but was grabbed by the shoulder.
“Delaney! Don’t you talk to me that—”
She gave him a swift punch in the gut and he fell to the concrete, clutching his stomach. “Do not touch me.” She went inside and hurried upstairs. She could hear the door open behind her. Footfalls in pursuit.
“Del! You get back here you little bi—” He tripped up a step and fell, cussing as he tumbled.
She went into her apartment and locked it tight. Only a few seconds passed before he was pounding outside. Muffled curses echoed through the building. She sank to the floor, back to the wall, knees to her chest. Her teeth chattered. She trembled as flecks of drywall fluttered to the carpet with each thump on the door.
A few minutes passed. The strikes were incessant. Violent. The voice of a passing policeman ordering him out of the complex did little to relieve the tension.
Then, her phone rang.
She answered, quivering. “Hello?”
“Is this the waitress?” It was a child’s voice. A little boy.
“What?” She sniveled. “Who is this?”
“He talks about you a lot.”
“Who does?”
“You were the last number in uncle Sam’s phone.”
Her eyes lit up.
He didn’t know how long he’d been staring into the sunset. The eternal clouds that loomed over the city broke up into a white sky that extended farther than his eyes could see. An infinite desert of yellowing sand lay before him. A single, weathered stretch of road carved through a valley in the hilly dunes.
“So, are you just going to sit there the rest of your life?”
Sam turned to see the Mysterious Figure from the alleyway sitting in a leather chair in the middle of the road. He was sipping on a glass of lemonade with a little umbrella poking out the top. “The heat sort of makes you miss the rain, doesn’t it?”
“Alright, who are you?”
“Now, now, don’t get angry. We see what happens when you get angry.” He beckoned toward the smoldering city across the river, still engulfed in a mist of smoke and ash.
“Me? What are you talking ab—”
“Calm down, calm down.” He got out of the chair with an exaggerated groan. “So, what’s your plan?”
“Plan?”
“For rescuing Delaney. You do have a plan, don’t you?”
“I mean,” he choked, stumbling through thoughts. “How am I supposed to rescue her from…that thing?”
“Diakrino?”
“Wait, wha
t? It has a name?”
“Yes. You should know that. You’ve been fighting with him your whole life. Unfortunately, he usually wins.” He opened a trapdoor in the ground that seemingly appeared from nowhere. He dug through the clutter inside. “I must say, I’m amazed you still haven’t caught on.”
“Caught on to what?” Sam was getting agitated. “Can you just tell me what the hell is happening? Please?”
“You know exactly what’s happening. It’s just a matter of whether or not your mind allows you to accept it.”
A vulture screamed in the sky above, then vanished.
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“Not yet.” He pulled out an old, worn backpack and tossed it over.
“What’s this?”
“Water for your trip. It’s more than obvious that you’re getting lost in this…creation of yours. So I thought maybe I’d humor it just a little.”
“What?” He unzipped the pack and looked inside. It was stuffed with clear plastic water bottles.
“Just follow the road. And keep on it. You have two options, Samuel. You can keep following the path no matter how long and difficult it gets, or you can give up and lie down. It’ll be your choice.”
“And what happens if—”
When he looked up, the Figure was gone. As was the chair and the trapdoor.
“I’m getting really tired of this guy…”
He slung the pack over his shoulder and wrapped his jacket around his waist. And shielding his eyes from the sun, he started off down the road. Into the desert of his own subconscious.
“When did this happen?” Delaney stared in disbelief as Sam’s chest swelled up and down with the help of a nearby respirator.
“Last night,” Beverly Pierce answered.
“I…I don’t know what to say…” She’d never spoken truer words. She grazed the top of his hand with her fingertips. It was warm to the touch. She whispered, even though she wasn’t sure if he could hear her, “I didn’t mean to be mad at you…”
A nurse gently approached. “Excuse me, but I need to change a hydration bag.”
“Right, ‘course.” Delaney stepped away as the hospital worker started unplugging IVs to switch out a bag of fluid. She took a seat next to Logan in the hallway.
The little boy couldn’t keep his eyes off her. “Uncle Sam was right.”
“’Bout what?” She sniffled and patted away a tear.
“About how pretty you are.”
She laughed. “Well, that’s mighty sweet of ya.”
“I didn’t say it. He did.” He nodded toward his uncle in the bed. Beverly and a doctor were talking. It didn’t look like the conversation was going well.
She finally emerged from the room and feigned cheerfulness. “Good news. Doctor says the brain activity is normal for now. Chances are while we’re all walking around worried, he’s enjoying a nice, peaceful sleep.” She angrily plopped into a chair. “Got to look at the glass half full sometimes, I guess.”
“I’m sure he’s doin’ just fine in there, Mrs. Pierce.” Delaney forced a smile. “Probably havin’ some sweet dreams.”
“This is a goddamn nightmare!” Sam shouted in frustration as he continued his trek down the empty road. Sweat soaked his t-shirt and he was leaving a trail of empty plastic water bottles. But they never seemed to run out. He’d drink one, and it was like some unseen hand was replacing them as he went along.
Not that he was complaining.
The heat baked the road, which was splintered with fractures in all directions. There were no signs of life. Just a hot breeze and endless mountains of orange sand. He considered stopping to rest a few times, but he always resisted, thinking that if he fell asleep, he might not want to get back up. Ever.
He eventually came to a tattered, blue road sign. The paint was cracked and faded. There were two arrows. One pointed back up the road and read “Paradiso,” the other pointed in the opposite direction and read “Atlas.”
“Atlas? What’s that supposed to be?”
A tumbleweed rolled across the way.
“Guess I’ll find out.” He tightened the strap on the pack and continued. For hours and hours, it seemed like. He looked at his broken watch. The broken hands were still. At least something was normal.
Finally, there was movement. Some indication of life. Another vulture soared overhead, screeching. It joined a flock of others. They flew in a spiraling vortex on the other side of a dune, clearly waiting for a meal to die.
A meal that, inexplicably, started crying.
It was an inhuman howl. Like an animal.
Curious, Sam left the road and crawled up the knoll. There was a basin on the other side, and at the bottom, a little creature lay writhing. It looked like a reptile, with brown, pebbled skin. Three feet long from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail, which was lined with spikes. Two skinny legs ended in two toes apiece, capped by black talons. Its two shorter arms ended in three lanky, clawed fingers. It had the head of a bird without feathers, complete with a beak. Two prominent fangs dangled from the roof of its mouth and three tiny horns stuck out the back of its skull like a Mohawk of bone.
But it was its eyes that drew the most attention. They were big, bulging and glistening. The eyes of a frightened child.
A baby dinosaur?
One of the buzzards swooped down and tore a piece of flesh from its side, where it had been gashed, blood seeping from an open wound. It wailed in pain.
“Hey!” Sam hurled a water bottle at another bird as it tried to pick off another chunk. It squawked and fled. He slid to his knees, kicking up dust, and examined the injured reptile. It looked emaciated. Ribs bulged from its side. Its low growls of agony were broken up by pathetic little coughs. “Hold on, bud.” He bottle fed the animal some water, which it took eagerly, gulp after gulp.
The birds all landed on the slope of a nearby dune, curiously watching as the intruder interrupted their dinner. He poured water over the animal’s sandy wound, cleaning it out.
“Alright, so where’s your momma?”
The creature stuck its nose out toward his backpack. More water. Sam obliged. It wound its tongue around the bottle and fed itself.
The vultures started ignoring the baby and headed over the crest of another hill. Sam followed, only to see the rotting carcass of a great tyrannosaurus-like behemoth being torn to bits by scavengers. “Oh…there she is…”
The pint-sized monster started crying again.
Twenty minuteslater, he was walking back down the road, the baby dinosaur dozing in his arms. It purred like a kitten, bobbing its head up and down as it drifted in and out of consciousness, the tail lightly swinging back and forth. Its arms twitched and its tongue hung limply from its mouth.
“Christ, you’re heavy.” Sam grunted as he propped it up. The baby opened its eyes and yawned, letting out a little squeak. “Could be worse, I guess.”
Thunder. Darkness engulfed the desert within an instant. The sky opened up and before he knew it, he was drenched with rain.
“Figures…”
The baby didn’t like the storm. It hid its head in Sam’s jacket, trembling.
“Got to find some sort of…cave or something…or—”
Right at the bend of the path ahead, what looked like an abandoned gas station sat deserted. Its outside was rusted beyond recognition and the corrugated roof looked like it could’ve collapsed at any moment. But through the window, he could see the soft glow of electric light.
“Guess that’ll have to do…”
Delaney sat at a table in the corner of the hospital room. Logan slept on the floor atop a bundle of blankets. His mother watched her with unease.
“What are you doing here?” Lauren asked.
“I…for Sam, I reckon.”
“Why, though? You barely know him.”
She didn’t know. She shrugged. “Guess I just like the part that I do know.”
There was a silence. His sister mused over
the answer. “He’s a good guy, you know.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “I can tell.”
“But you should probably leave.”
She was taken aback. Wasn’t exactly expecting that. “Pardon?”
“You seem like a nice girl. Don’t get your hopes up on Sam. You’ll never have one hundred percent of his heart.”
“Look, I ain’t tryin’ to put up a white fence or nothin’ like that. He was nice to me, so I’m just returnin’ the favor.”
“Sure.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m just letting you know. I love my brother. But he shouldn’t be with anybody. Not as long as she’s still in the back of his mi—”
“Lauren Pierce.” Beverly had been listening from the doorframe. Sam’s sister looked up like a deer on the highway. “Mind your own business.”
“Sorry.” She crossed her arms.
A pause. Rain started outside.
“Doctors say he should be stable through the night. Just gave him another dose of sedative.” Beverly turned to Del. “I was going to take a walk, maybe get some fresh air, if you wanted to tag along.”
She answered hesitantly. “Sure, might be nice.” A text came through her phone as she and Sam’s mother stepped outside. She didn’t bother to read it when she saw who it was from. She decided right then and there that she’d never read those particular messages again.
Sam kicked open the back door to the gas station. Inside he found a single room with a cot and a window, rain battering the glass. There were old shelves full of empty gas cans and faded receipts. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling by a chain. It all looked somewhat familiar. He couldn’t quite pinpoint it, though…
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