by Ian Woodhead
Joseph dropped to his knees and placed his arm over Mortimer’s shoulder. “Oh God, I’m so sorry about this,” he cried. “I shouldn’t have tried to be so clever. I should have secured him when you arrived.”
He ran over to the bed and ripped off the cover and gently laid it over Daniel.
“Why don’t I feel anything, Joseph? There’s nothing inside me, nothing at all.” Mortimer twisted around. “What is wrong with me?”
“There’s nothing the matter, Mortimer. Believe me, the fact that you’re questioning your apparent lack of emotions shows that you’re more balanced than most people. Just look around you, look at where you come from, hell on every world, there’s death everywhere you look. We’re all anesthetized to it.” He wrapped his arms around Mortimer’s shoulders. “We had better get a move on, young man. There’s still an incredible amount of work left for us to do.”
“What about the other Joseph?” Mortimer felt his rage rising. He liked how it felt, even if it was anger, any emotion was better than feeling dead inside. “I want to kill the bastard.” He strained his neck, trying to see any sign of him through the window. He saw nothing. Had he expected the bastard to hang around outside, waving at them from the end of the garden? He’d be long gone by now. “Tell me how we ended up back here, Joseph.” Right now, he couldn’t care less but he though the sound of Joseph’s voice would help mute the screams detonating in his head.
“There are invisible lines that connect us to our alternate selves. When we shift from each world, we invariably end up close to each other. When the first Joseph shifted for the first time, he appeared in his other self’s laboratory. We’re all very good at comprehending the science, you know. I believe that if the first Joseph hadn’t constructed the device then one of us would have sooner or later.”
“You wish he had come here first?”
Joseph nodded. “It isn’t physically possible but yeah, I do. Together we would have solved both of our problems. That other Joseph and his other citystate founders unleashed the virus on their enemies, having no idea of the repercussions. Thinking they could sit back and watch the other citiystates perish. They died alright, and the corpses then converged on their city, the last remaining source of food on their blighted planet. Hard to believe that those fools didn’t think this would happen.”
“Jesus,” Mortimer muttered. “So they almost annihilated their own species?”
“I wish they had, then they wouldn’t have found us. They invaded our world, stole you three, and unleashed the virus. Our growing population was reduced to almost nothing. They then enslaved the survivors and put us to work in the food factories.”
Joseph walked to the door. “I really am sorry about your brother.”
Mortimer closed his eyes, still not sure why he wasn’t grieving. He kept gazing at the shape of his brother’s body under that cover, expecting him to start moving at any minute. “So what do we do now?”
“It’s simple. I want to close the bridge between here and the other world for good, but I still want to keep in contact with the Source World. I believe we can still cure this death plague. I just want the other world to be isolated so they can finish what they started and kill themselves off.”
“You said it was impossible though.”
“Not if we find another bridge.” The man placed both his hand gently on Mortimer’s shoulders. “Come, let me introduce you to my friends, although I think you’ll have already met them once.” He took him to the bedroom door and descended the stairs. Mortimer took one look at the cover before following Joseph.
His mind still overflowed with a thousand unanswered questions, but before Mortimer could even spurt out the first one, Joseph had already left the house. He rushed after him and found a crowd of people standing on the sidewalk. Joseph had been right. There were a few standing amongst them that he remembered from before. Unlike that time, Mortimer saw no hostility in their faces. He discreetly scanned their arms to see if he could find the body that he’d been inside.
He turned away. Why was he even thinking about that? He closed his eyes and tilted his head towards the blazing sun, feeling the warm rays massage his skin. The scent of flowers filled the air. Mortimer had forgotten the smell of the great outdoors. In the city, the stink of death coated everything, sometimes so strong you could taste it. Inside wasn’t much better; the air conditioning erased the stench of death but left a sterile environment.
“My brother should be buried here. He would have liked that. We can’t leave him to rot like the other bodies in that cellar.” Mortimer snapped open his eyes and sought out Joseph. He found him standing at the back. “Wait, why are those poor people still down there?”
“We weren’t allowed to touch them. We were – in a way still are – slaves to the masters of the city. The only reason why they are not here now is because they have other concern, and unless we find a way to stop them, they will be back. This time I suspect they’ll kill us all, especially since the other me is nowhere to be found.” Joseph looked grimly about.
Mortimer saw that they were all staring at him.
“At least we don’t need their tablets,” said Joseph, smiling at him. “Not now we have you.”
Chapter Fifteen
Their brief forced march came to an abrupt end when it felt as though the contents of his ribcage wanted to escape. Kenny knew that they were about to shift one more time. He refused to allow the unpleasant experience to distract him. This would be their only chance to get away. He could tell by the way his sister acted that she knew their location was about to alter as well. Kenny clenched his stomach muscles the best he could and prepared himself, praying that they wouldn’t land in the middle of a zombie horde.
By their captors’ reactions, though, the goons didn’t have a single idea what they were experiencing.
“Oh fuck, they’ve poisoned us!” gasped the huge blonde-haired youth who had secured Kenny’s arms behind his back. “Oh, this really hurts.” He leaned forward. “What have you done to us?” he demanded, spitting in Kenny’s ear.
Kenny kept quiet and suppressed a triumphant grin, dropping his mouth in awe as the fake landscape surrounding the five of them blurred out of existence. The three men cried out, their voices lost in the swirling vortex. Kenny felt the grip on his arms loosen. He fell down, feeling his mind slip as well when he saw there was no ground beneath his body. Kenny forced his head up, and through the kaleidoscope of swirling primary colors, he saw that Diane had not moved, yet her captor crouched behind her, crunched up into a tight ball.
He jumped to his feet, ran over to Diane and slipped his fingers into her limp hand. “We don’t have much time,” he whispered, starting as his voice sounded like it was coming from behind him. He shut his mouth, not daring to speak again. The vivid hues were losing their intensity.
Kenny pulled her away from the three guards, knowing that it wouldn’t take them more than a couple of seconds for their collective limited intelligences to decide that losing their prisoners would be more harmful to their health than stepping into another world.
The ground beneath his feet lost its spongy texture and solidified into rough rock. Kenny steadied his sister when she almost lost her balance. He turned to see the others had already regained their composure and sighed; he’d hoped for a few more seconds to get away from them.
“Where are we now?”
His gut feeling told him that they were back in the world where they’d last escaped from. The air smelled the same, and although they were now inside what appeared to be a cave, Kenny believed that they weren’t that far from that underground structure. He had no idea how he could even know this. Then again, considering what he and Diane had been through in the past few hours, he decided not to even bother looking for explanations anymore.
“We’re away from the goons,” he whispered. Kenny looked beyond her shoulder, just to check that they really were alone. “Right now, that’s all that matters.” He took her hand. “Let�
��s go see where this takes us, and keep your eyes peeled for those guards.”
“What’s so funny?” hissed Diane.
Kenny put his hands up and traced the beaming smile plastered across his face with his forefinger. He extended his arms and placed them flat against the walls of the harrow passageway and turned around. His sister’s face, contorted into worry, gazed back at him. “I’m not laughing, hun,” he replied. How could he even explain his mood to her? That, from out of nowhere this torrent of positive feelings had just soaked into his body, like a dry sponge dropped into a bucket of warm water?
“Come on, Diane. You of all people know how shitty my life has been recently. Just the fact that I’m still alive is a major fucking miracle.” He held his hand in front of his face, noting that his fingers now glowed. At least he had found out how they could see down here: the walls were covered in this stuff. “Diane, I’m cured. I’ll never have to have any more of that vile stuff in my body again.”
“And you can stop other people from turning into monsters.”
He nodded excitedly. “Exactly!”
“And yet, instead of being treated as heroes, here we are, running for our lives.”
“No shock there. They don’t know what I can do.”
“How much do you want to wager? You cured that man in front of a television camera, I bet half the capital saw it.”
Even the harsh reality of her words failed to dent his euphoria. “Fuck them, Diane. Look around you, we’re back in that other world now. These people will be grateful to have us.”
“Wait, are you saying that we’re back in the place we jumped out of?”
“Yeah, I’m sure of it.”
“The fuckers were going to rape me, Kenny.” She shivered and pushed him back. “These bastards are no better.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said, softly. He reached out and pulled her into his embrace. “I promise you that I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“How are you going to stop them?”
“Would you want to upset the man who could eradicate the plague that’s destroyed their world?” He lifted her hand to his face and kissed it. “Focus on the certainties, Diane. Right now, the only one we know for sure is that those three guards are in here with us and they will not welcome us with open arms.”
He wrapped his warm fingers around her hand. “Are you ready to carry on?”
Diane sighed. “It’s not like we have any choice, is it?”
He shook his head. “No, not at all.” Kenny took five steps forward, before stopping again.
“What’s wrong, Kenny?”
“Not sure. Don’t worry,” he said, when he felt her stiffen. “I haven’t seen our three friends. It just looks as though the tunnel is turning orange.”
She peered over his shoulder. “Move forward! Can’t you see? We’ve found a way out, it must be a sunset, we can see!”
Kenny chuckled, “I told you not to worry. Come on then, let’s go see what this world has to show us.” He wasn’t under any illusion what they would see after they emerged into the open air. From what they’d found from their last visit, the walking dead dominated this world. Was it really a good idea to follow this route? No place above the ground would be safe from them. Then again, it wasn’t as if they had any other options. If those guards weren’t in front, then they had to be behind them.
“That’s not the sun,” he murmured. Kenny frowned, not sure of what he was seeing. He hurried along the passageway, watching the orange glow grow brighter.
“Kenny!”
The glow disappeared from his vision as his body jerked back. Kenny felt his sister’s arms encircling his chest. He blinked several times; the glow had lost some of its intensity and he now saw just how close he had been to falling to his death. This tunnel opened out into a vast, cathedral-sized cavern. He leaned forward; the path under his feet stopped at an abrupt ledge. He couldn’t see where the drop ended.
“That was close,” Kenny said. He turned around in her arms. “Too close, what the hell happened?”
“I only saw the danger when your body obstructed the light.” He looked behind him. “Oh, this is just unreal, Kenny. What the hell is this place?”
Kenny turned back around. The light had now faded altogether, giving him an unparalleled view of the cavern. Dozens of dark orange crystal shards hung down from the cavern’s ceiling. He tilted his head up, gazing in wonder at the spectacle. What were they? The ceiling had to be at least a hundred meters from where he stood and yet some of the thicker shards grew down, past his eye line, disappearing into the blackness.
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life,” he said, tracing the smooth line of the closest shard. The edge looked sharp enough to split light. He reluctantly took his eyes off the structures and looked to his left, smiling when he saw the path wound around the rough cavern wall. At least this wasn’t a dead end.
“Are you still feeling like you’re doped up, Kenny?”
He nodded. “Right now, I feel like we’re in the presence of God. This is part of the reason why these three worlds were able to connect, Diane.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s just a gut feeling that I have.” That felt like a lie. Kenny’s mind and body had altered when his other world sister had bitten him. The more he shifted through the worlds, the more his body adapted to the transition. It was as if he had become linked to all three worlds. Kenny smiled to himself, deciding not to share those thoughts with Diane. He had no wish for her to think that her brother was losing his grip on reality. His grin turned into a smirk when he realized that was just what was happening to him.
“Come on, Diane, we need to keep moving,” he said, taking her hand. Kenny stepped out onto the ledge and flattened his back against the rock face. “Are you going to be okay here?”
“I think so.” She followed him out onto the ledge. “You had better quicken your pace though, Kenny, I can hear footsteps.”
He looked past his sister and saw shadows on the tunnel wall. Kenny slid his feet faster along the ledge, hoping that those bastards wouldn’t be able to see the cavern and would tumble over the crevice. He moaned when he saw a head appear. It glanced at the crystal formation for a second before turning to face them.
Kenny saw the man slowly grin before squeezing his body onto the narrow ledge. The other two followed him out. Kenny moaned again and tried to increase his speed. Unlike him and Diane, the men were choosing their steps carefully; they had no other option. Each guard equalled at least three of Kenny in body mass.
“Why are you even doing this?” Kenny shouted. He saw them all look up in surprise. He guessed that none of them thought that their prey would ask them questions. “Look, can’t you see how dangerous this ledge is? Just go back and say you lost us. Who’s going to know? Come on, you all must know that there’s a good chance that you could fall here.”
None of them bothered to respond, not that that surprised him that much. They had their orders. Kenny pushed on, noticing that the ledge had started to narrow. Would those clowns attempt to cross that? “You had better watch your step here, Diane,” he whispered. “Our journey is about to become rather tricky.”
“It’s not like we can go back, is it,” she answered. “Stop worry about me, you’re the clumsy one. Just try not to take me with you if you do lose your balance.”
“Oh my, you are so compassionate.”
“Come back right now, and I promise we won’t damage you.”
Kenny looked past his sister. The three of them hadn’t moved forward. Kenny nodded to himself; perhaps they had more sense than he gave them credit for. The blond man’s face suggested to Kenny that he wasn’t finding this very funny. The man reached to his side and pulled out his gun.
“No more warnings!” he shouted, pointed the evil-looking device in Kenny’s direction.
Kenny sighed and turned away; he remembered what Rossini had said. These clowns wouldn’t dare shoot them.
“Don’t you turn your back on me, you little fucking shit!”
He yelped as a flake of rock close to his face fell into the abyss when one of the goons fired. His foot slipped. If it hadn’t been for Diane slamming her arm against his chest, he would have followed that tiny piece of rock. He couldn’t believe that they had actually fired on them.
The others followed Blonde Bastard’s example and steadily raised their weapons. It only took a moment for Kenny to realize that he should have kept his mouth shut. The man’s slow brain had eventually reached the same conclusion as Kenny. They wouldn’t be able to reach them; this ledge would not hold those guys.
“Fuck, Diane, we’re going to have to give ourselves up,” he muttered. “He missed once, but I doubt we’ll be that lucky twice.”
His sister wasn’t even looking at him. He gritted his teeth, watching them take aim. “Don’t sho…” An explosion of gunfire silenced Kenny’s words. He gaped in astonishment as the blonde man fell to his knees, dropping his gun. He fell forward, lying on top of his weapon.
Kenny twisted his head and found another group of men on the other side of the cavern, every one of them armed with rifles. “Where did they come from?” he muttered. The man at the front of the group took a step forward, brought his rifle up and pushed the stock into his shoulder. He felt his sister stiffen.
“Oh no, not him.”
Kenny took her hand. “It’ll be okay, I won’t let him touch you, I promise.” He saw that the man’s actions were enough to get the two remaining guards to stumble back, before they both spun around and fled back through the passageway.
“It’s going to be alright,” Kenny said. The man lowered his weapon and stood back to allow two very familiar people to show themselves. Kenny smiled to himself at the sight of the thick-set man standing next to the other Tony.
Kenny squeezed his sister’s hand. “Are you okay to continue?”
She took her eyes off the man holding the rifle and slowly nodded. “There’s no other choice, is there?” Her face darkened. “Just be sure of this though. Kenny. If he even leers at me, I’ll push him off that fucking ledge.”