by Ian Woodhead
The large man held out his hand. “I’m happy to see you two again.” He looked at the man standing beside him, then frowned at Kenny. “What happened to the one who looks like my Tony?”
Kenny shrugged. “I don’t know. We got separated and we lost him.”
“If he’s anything like my Tony, he’ll survive.” The big man nodded to himself. “If he does come through, I believe he’ll show up close to us, anyway. It looks as though we are all destined to be together.”
The man with the rifle clicked his fingers and his men ran past them. Kenny felt his sister cringe when her attacker squeezed past her. The big man frowned, switching his gaze from Diane to the man at the back of the group. “I heard there was trouble while I was away,” he said. “I think I can guess what happened, Diane.” He nodded at Kenny’s sister. “Mistakes were made, although one particular incident will not go unpunished. You have my word on that.”
The big man wrapped his arms around Kenny. “I owe you my life,” he said. “What is mine is now yours. As for your friends, my men will deal with them. Come on, I think you should follow us. I have something to show you that will blow your mind.”
He spun around and walked back through the entrance. Kenny took one last look at the unusual rock formations before he and Diane hurried after them, his statement about them always meeting up with the same people stuck in his throat. Kenny stopped dead and looked back at those formations. “Why haven’t I run into another version of me?” he said. “And how come you know my name?”
The man sighed. “I thought that you would have already worked that out, Kenny. The other Kenny died during the outbreak.” He walked back and placed his hands on Kenny’s shoulders. “Our Joseph made me promise to find you and make sure you were safe.”
“But why? I really don’t understand any of this.”
“Come on, It’ll be better if I just show you. This is going to blow your mind, son.”
“Hush down, Kenny,” whispered his sister. She took his hand. “He’s already told us that he’s going to answer your questions.” She paused and tilted her head. “Is that rain?”
Those crystal shards called to Kenny. Each one resonated with a unique song. He knew the others had left the cavern; even his sister had abandoned him. He didn’t care about such trivialities. The songs were all that mattered. Their calling compelled him to move as close as he dared to the edge of the precipice. Even under their spell, Kenny wasn’t stupid enough to allow their seduction to cover his senses with their beautiful voices. There was another voice demanding to join the choir. Compared to the harmony of the shards, this voice sounded like nails screeching across a school blackboard. His bones vibrated as the harsh voice continued to torment his ear. Kenny grounded his teeth and slammed his hands against the side of his head, cutting off all sounds.
The sea of silence was only interrupted by a soft splashing of raindrops into small puddles all around his crouching body.
“Where did you go?”
Kenny reluctantly raised his head. Although the drops of florescent liquid forming a hand-sized pool directly in front of his head was infinitely more appealing than replying to the voice, he knew his mission couldn’t end here.
“You said that I ask too many questions,” he said, watching the glowing rain. It felt rather pleasant to feel it land on his face. Kenny tilted his head back even further and opened his eyes as wide as they would go, needing to feel the warm liquid drip directly into his eyes. His desire never came to fruition as a black shadow obscured his vision before forcing him back up onto his feet and dragging his limp body out of the cavern and into another passageway.
With his back slammed against the rough wall, he found a deeply lined face staring into his. Kenny’s dreaming mind followed the wrinkles, seeing cracks in stone. Had the rock come alive? He heard a deep voice, presumably belonging to the cave monster, telling the blackboard voice a story about how some of their wildlife under the earth could affect how some individuals perceived the shards. Kenny closed his eyes, picturing himself dancing through a glowing forest of bright orange crystals.
“Please, I need you to snap out of it.”
“Is there any sign of activity?”
“Stephen, what happened to him? Seriously, I need to know the truth.”
Kenny heard the voices; they blasted through his brain like bullets, ripping holes in the comforting fabric of clarification that had settled over his tired body the moment the liquid in the cavern had begun to fall.
His lifted his eyelids, looking past the faces of Stephen and his sister.
Cave Monster and Blackboard Voice.
“Where am I?” The shard voices hadn’t left him; he didn’t think they ever would, not now, but their soft tones now competed with human sounds and mechanical interference. He blinked, enjoying the confusion rippling over Stephen’s rugged face. He did feel a twinge of guilt at the sight of his sister’s agonizing worry.
His world righted itself, showing him the interior of a grey-painted room. When he lifted his body off the cold, hard floor, evidence of his whereabouts wasn’t hard to spot. Where the rocks jutted out from the flat surfaces, they had either been painted over or covered with fabric, as if the designers were ashamed of the room’s origins.
“We haven’t gone very far, Kenny.” Diane’s face threatened to crumple. “You really had me worried, you idiot. As soon as all that water fell and you started to stumble, I honestly believed that you were having a fit.”
Kenny wrapped his arms around her body, noting that his wet clothing retained a little of the liquid’s fluorescent properties. “It’s okay, Diane, really it is. I’m fine. I guess my body is taking time to adjust, that’s all.” Even to his ears, his voice sounded false. There was nothing he could do about that. It was ironic that Stephen was going to show him something that would blow his mind and in the end, it was the very objects themselves that opened him up like petals on a yellow rose.
The other voices in this dull room belonged to strangers, except for one. Kenny offered a tentative smile at Stephen’s partner, standing in the middle of a group of young, dark-haired men. Her own smile, directed at Kenny, caused him to sigh with gratitude, pleased that the woman hadn’t come to any harm. The woman gave Kenny one final nod before she resumed her previous task.
“You’re not the first, Kenny. Those unique rocks have a power greater than you could ever imagine. Over the years, they have melted the minds of at least a dozen individuals.” Stephen leaned over Diane and pulled him to his feet. “I’m just glad to see that your mind hasn’t been turned into Jell-O.”
Stephen clicked his fingers and one of the young men wheeled a black chair across the tiles. It amused Kenny to notice how out of place this group of men looked in comparison to everyone else he had met in this world. With their pressed trousers and gleaming white shirts, none of them would have looked out of place sitting at one of the terminals on the floor where he worked.
“I think that what I do have to show you, Kenny, will turn your mind into Jell-O though. I hope you’re prepared.”
Stephen carefully picked what looked like a rock fragment off a metal desk to the left of him. “This is our good luck memento,” he said, smiling. “It’s the only piece that we have ever been able to retrieve.” He approached Kenny. “Open your hand please.”
He did as instructed and flinched when the man dropped the rock into the palm of his hand. Apart from the weight, Kenny could tell immediately that this wasn’t rock; it felt soft against his skin, like an overripe pear.
“Is this part of one of the shards?”
The big man grinned, while nodding. “Our Joseph used that to start up his project.”
Kenny gently touched the fragment, watching his finger sink though the surface. “Oh fuck,” he muttered, jerking his finger back, “it’s as cold as ice inside.”
“Yeah, I know, the fragment lost its warmth about a week after Joseph found it.”
“Oh fuck, it died!”
Kenny buried his head in his hands. He looked up. Both Diane and Stephen’s bemused expressions told him that they had no clue as to what he meant. “It should have a voice!” he shouted, “a resonance!” Kenny stood up and placed the fragment carefully back on the desk and walked over to Natalie. He looked up at the black, loose-woven fabric hanging from the ceiling. His bones had already told him what lay beyond it. There were no jutting-out rock pieces concealed under this piece.
“This is what you wanted to show me, isn’t it?” One glance at the woman’s face told him he wasn’t wrong.
She looked across at Stephen before ripping the fabric away. Despite already knowing and preparing himself, Kenny still fell back, hitting the chair, awed by the sight of every shard filling his head with their endless harmonic tune. Kenny tore his gaze away and focused on the hard rock edge, seeing the stones formed into an arch over ten meters high and six meters across. From this perspective, the shards lined up, continuing the archway into what appeared to be infinity. “This is how Joseph was able to move from this world to ours.” The songs flowing from the shards would never be in sync. Kenny saw that now. That man had not found the fragment, as Stephen had claimed. He’d ripped it off one of the shards and it was their new frequency, their imperfection that had broken the skin from this world to the next.
“Is there any point in me talking, Kenny, you seem to know everything now.”
“I don’t know when your plague almost wiped out your population,” said Kenny. Shallow circles rippled across the skin of the shards. Their tune shifted frequency. He took two steps back, feeling the hairs on his head vibrate.
“It’s been at least a decade now, Kenny. Look, I’m not sure what any of this has got to do with anything. We need you. Joseph told us what you would eventually be.” Stephen gripped his shoulders, blocking the gateway from Kenny’s view. “We can shut off the gateway at any time, but if we did that, we would all be dead. It’s only the medication from your world that’s keeping us alive.”
Stephen’s fingers dug deeper. “Will you help us, please? If we don’t sever the cord, they’ll turn what’s left of this world into a charnel house; they won’t stop until they bleed us all dry.”
“How do they enter your world? Do their soldiers come through this gate?”
Stephen violently shook his head. “No, it’s one way only. This location is one piece of information that they were never able to torture out of Joseph. We have no idea how they travel here, the bastards just appear.”
“You might want to revise your information, Stephen. Look at the archway.”
The big man’s fingers gripped Kenny tight. “Oh fuck, I can feel the vibration!” He slowly turned his head. “No, no way.” Stephen ran over to the archway. “We have to get out of here, I mean, right now.” His fingers danced over several buttons on the fist-sized console embedded in the pillar next to the archway. “They’re coming through the gateway! It’s not possible, how did they manage to open it?”
A single scream ripped through Stephen’s frantic cries. Kenny spun around and ran over to his sister, grabbing her wrist and pulling her away from the wall. He felt the change in the air and knew what was coming next, and it wasn’t going to arrive through the archway. A pair of dead-fish eyes materialized next to a technician.
“Move out of the way!” The man had no chance; the rest of the dead thing appeared as soon as Kenny shouted out his warning. It lunged at the unwary man and bit into the side of his neck. Three more dead things appeared behind the first one and fell onto the shrieking man.
Every guard in the room opened fire, filling the small space with the deafening sound of automatic gunfire. They didn’t discriminate; the guards took out all four dead things and shot the technician as well.
“Not again,” cried Stephen. He left the archway and rushed over to Kenny. “Turn around, you idiot! There’s two more behind you.” Kenny moaned and grabbed Diane, pulling her back as the dead things rushed them. Stephen blasted the closest one in the head, then pushed the pair of them to the side and kicked the remaining zombie in the face. Kenny heard the crunching of teeth as it flew backwards, then watched Natalie rush over and stamp on its head.
“I’m so sorry,” whispered his sister, showing Kenny her bloodied arm. “The bastard bit me. It’s too late.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I’ve failed you.”
“Stop that, right now,” he hissed, following the others over to the open door. Kenny pulled Diane out of the room and gently sat her down, leaning her back against the wall. Kenny jumped when the door behind him slammed shut. He looked at the survivors, horrified to see that there were only four of them left. Kenny nervously glanced both directions down the hallway, hoping that those things wouldn’t appear out here as well.
He turned back to Diane, pulling out his knife. Kenny sliced the blade across his palm and clamped the hand tight around the bite mark, praying that this would work. He heard two more gunshots but didn’t bother looking up. He should have known better than to believe that those fucking rotting bastards would only appear inside that room. The two survivors would be able to deal with them.
“I feel so cold,” Diane said.
He took off his shirt and wrapped it around the wound, pressing it tight, and kept his hand on her neck, waiting for her pulse to stop. “Don’t worry, you’re not going to die on me, Diane. I cured Stephen, I can cure you as well.”
The woman’s eyes flickered and her head slumped forward. “No, you’re not dead, please, you can’t be!”
He felt someone pull him up. Kenny tried to shrug off the grip but he couldn’t move.
“Leave her,” shouted Stephen. “I’m really sorry, but she’s gone. We have to go. There’s more of them coming this way.”
“I’m not leaving her!” Kenny shouted. “You go take care of them, I’m not going anywhere without my sister.” He cried out when the man point the gun at Diane. “Don’t you fucking dare!” he growled.
“Stop it, you know the fucking rules, we can’t have her rising!”
He screamed and thrust his head back, feeling it connect with something that crunched. His grip was loosened enough for him to fight his way out of the man’s grip.
Kenny wrapped his arms around Diane’s body, growing more desperate when he realized that he could feel her heart beating. “If you want to shoot, then go ahead and fucking shoot. You’ll have to kill me as well.”
Through the thick blood streaming down Stephen’s face, Kenny clearly saw the man sneer. He raised his gun.
“Don’t be a fool!” shouted Natalie, slapping the big man’s hand down. “Just look at her.”
Kenny spun around to sees that her eyes had reopened. He saw only warmth in those blues orbs. She smiled weakly before leaning to the side and throwing up. He pulled up and helped her get back onto her feet. Kenny hugged her tight. “Oh God, I thought I had lost you forever, Diane.”
“We’ll all be dead if we don’t get away from here,” shouted Stephen. The man wiped away some of the blood and flicked it onto the floor. “Look at them all!” He aimed his gun at the mass of shambling corpses filling the corridor, then sighed. “Fuck! Come on!” He turned and ran in the opposite direction.
Both Natalie and Kenny helped Diane along by grasping her under an arm, and they all followed Stephen. The big man skidded to a halt at the next doorway. He pushed it open and held it open as the others filed inside.
“We can’t go back, not yet,” he said, looking at Diane. “Not in your condition. Those things will shamble right past this door. The outer guards will deal with them; we’re only a short distance from the main entrance. Those dead things will have already tripped alarms.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay.”
Kenny had doubts about that but kept silent; he had other things to worry about. He guided Diane over to a chair and sat her down. “Tell me how you feel, Diane.”
“I’m just a little tired,” she whispered. “Thanks to you, I’m alive though, that
’s the main thing.”
Stephen sighed. “I’m sorry about that, really I am.” He looked over at Natalie and shrugged. “I know you saved me, but I was out of it while you were doing your thing. I couldn’t believe that you could save her. I suppose two decades of built-in survival is hard to break.” The man pushed his axe under the door handle and walked over to Kenny. He leaned over and offered his hand. “Next time, I’ll listen to you, I promise.”
“There’re in here as well!” shouted Natalie.
Stephen turned and tried to dive away as two zombies lunged out of the shadows. He tripped over Kenny’s body and fell on him, forcing all the air out of his stomach. Kenny couldn’t breathe, he certainly couldn’t crawl out from under the man.
Natalie pulled the axe out from under the door and rammed the pointed end into the head of the zombie closest to Stephen. The big man rolled to one side. Kenny took in a huge lungful of air and crawled over to his sister, intending to pull her out of the remaining zombie’s reach. It literally fell on Stephen as he was still on his knees. He shrieked out as it bit into his shoulder just before Natalie cleaved the dead thing’s skull in half.
The bitten man staggered back, falling against the far wall. Kenny ran over to him, trying to open the wound in his hand. Stephen held out his arm.
“Oh no, I can fee…” His words just stopped.
Kenny watched, unwilling to believe his own eyes as the man’s body slumped to the floor. His skin bubbled up in huge, weeping red blisters and then ripped open. He grabbed Natalie’s arm as the crying woman ran past him. “Don’t,” he warned. Deep red flesh pushed out through the multiple rents in the torn skin before changing to a consistency of pork jelly.
Kenny spun the woman around and pushed her face into his chest, unable to take his eyes off the dissolving mess spreading out from the corner of the room. His sister caught her breath.
“That’s going to happen to me if I get bitten again,” Diane whispered.