by Logan Keys
“Okay.” I nod. “So this is the other team’s home base. Let’s scout the village while we have the chance. Cory and I will keep the foothold here. You guys head out and flash grenade the surrounding huts. Keep guard. This is way too easy. Oh, and if anyone’s walking around a special shade of blue, don’t let them get a kiss in. They use their teeth.”
I watch them leave, glad Cory’s not arguing. The guy’s a loose cannon, and he’s been acting strange ever since his attack on that little zombie back in the jungle.
He’s wild-eyed and staring off into space near the window. “Chill out, hero,” he mutters. “I’m not gonna go crazy PTSD guy here. I just can’t stand the stiffs, is all.”
“They get your family or something, Cor?”
For once, he doesn’t give me a dirty look, just smiles off into the distance. “What, we gonna be pals now? Tell each other our backstories and share some bro time?”
“Right.”
A thud outside the window has us both creep over to it in a squat, guns raised.
Muffled curses float up, and then a helmet appears.
“Grab him!”
Cory reaches a long arm out and grabs the jacket of a soldier from the opposing team. Together we drag him through the window.
The private lands in a heap, and we point our weapons at him, yelling at the same time, “Hands on your head!”
He obeys, letting his gun drop to the floor.
“Well, well,” says Cory, drawing his words out. “Murphy, you sure did pick the wrong hut.”
I stay at a forty-five degree angle, gun trained on him, while Cory begins to secure Murphy’s hands.
“Where’s your team, soldier?” I ask.
He stays forward-facing with a stubborn expression.
Cory shoves him back, and points his M4 at Murphy’s head. “Quit screwing around, Murph. Where’s the group? We won this thing. It’s over.”
When he doesn’t reply, Cory leans forward and grins. Murphy’s eyes widen before they roll back into his head.
“What are you doing, Cory? What’s wrong with him?”
Cory straightens with a shrug, while Murphy stays down. “I know where they’re at. Come on.”
“We can’t cheat. Nolan will have our asses.”
But he blows me off, heading for the door.
“Cory, I’ll tell Nolan you used your Special.”
That stops him. I picture a beach to keep him from probing my mind to see if I’m being honest. “It’s not fair to play dirty,” I say, not really meaning it.
Fog surrounds me. One minute Cory’s there, and the next, I’m in that faraway place, like when I transition. My first instinct is to panic, to think the monster’s taken over, but then it dawns on me that this is different, confusing, and without the normal amount of tension. It’s like floating.
I briefly wonder if someone’s thrown a flash grenade, or maybe I’ve been hit and died.
Cory grabs my shoulders, and my senses flicker back. “Hey, man, you okay?”
I blink. “Where are we?”
“What do you mean?”
Cory’s standing there, only he’s different. His fatigues look old, ancient. A pack of smokes is rolled up under his sleeve, and his hair’s longer, a shaggy mop held back by a bandana. We’re in the jungle again, only this foliage is greener, richer, and a hell of a lot denser. There’s also no village in sight. “Why do you look so weird?”
Cory stares back like I’ve lost my mind. “C’mon, man, get with it. Nolan’s asked us to clear a tunnel. Let’s go!”
I follow, noticing for the first time that my own fatigues are older, too. Like from out of the Vietnam war. Had I transitioned? How much time have I missed? Days … months, even. None of this makes any sense.
Cory crouches and yanks up a piece of cardboard, revealing a hole in the ground with steps carved into the earth.
He shakes his head. “Damned VC hid this one good.”
“VC …? Vietcong?”
Cory hops in, disappearing down the hole. “Hatter,” he calls back up. “Get down here, man!”
His shout of alarm makes me rush, tripping on the way down and falling a short distance to land at the bottom.
Cory flashes his light in my face. “Whole bunch of tunnels down here.”
He pauses to light a cigarette and gestures at the flashlight in my hand. I stare at it, wondering where I’d gotten it.
Only a pistol hangs off of my belt and a flashlight has replaced my M4.
What the hell …? “Where’s my weapon?”
“You check that way.” Cory points before heading into an opposite tunnel too quickly for me to ask any more questions.
After I realize Cory’s not coming back, I walk the way he’d said to go. I’m still unsure of … everything.
These tunnels seem endless. How long have I been walking? A minute? An hour? Footsteps muffled by the damp earth are the only sound. I’m turning my third corner left—or is it the second?—into another never-ending passageway, and this with an even lower ceiling that forces me to bend.
I follow my flashlight’s round beam of light darting across the dank, pockmarked walls. Tree roots hang from above, their winding back into the dirt gives the image of giant snakes.
Just when I’m ready to turn back, an outline of an arm from a distant tunnel catches my eye. Someone’s leaning between the two adjoining paths, and the back of their helmet partially shows, too.
I call out, but they don’t answer; they remain still—too still. Approaching slowly, I draw the pistol from my belt. My flashlight’s beam lands on a neck that’s grey and chalky. I’m prepared for some kind of dormant stiffie, but even with me standing a foot away, he doesn’t move.
My breath whistles slightly through my nose from the dust. This underground passage is the worst place to be with my transitional ability. What happens if I do, and get stuck?
I’m close enough to touch his arm with my pistol, so I do.
Nothing.
I move past the tunnel that splits off and turn to face my new friend who’s been dead for a long time. His jaw hangs open at an angle, showing crooked grey teeth. His Vietcong uniform sags on his wasted body that’s nothing but bones and paper-thin skin.
“Tommy!”
A distant call echoes down the tunnel. It isn’t Cory. It sounds more like … it can’t be.
“Tommy!”
I race in that direction, calling back, “Joelle!” This tunnel’s smaller than the previous. I’m struggling to get through. “Joelle!” What in the hell is she doing on a training mission?
Something’s tangling around my head. My hand comes away from my face with silver strands. Spider webs. Dirt clods rain down on me while I fight to remove the threads; the stuff’s in my hair, covering my mouth—thick, like stretched cotton—and it’s sticking my arms down to my sides, having wrapped around my body during the struggle.
“Tommy!” Joelle calls, and I try to answer, only, when I open my mouth, webs slip inside.
The passageway’s grown tight, and the ceiling is close enough to scrape my helmet.
“Jo!” I yell once I’ve spit out enough silk.
A tiny light flickers ahead, and then grows smaller as I move to a crawl when the space forces me onto my hands and knees. Since I’ve lost my flashlight in the fight with the webs, the dot of light ahead is my only guide.
My hands burn, more pricks sting my neck and arms, impeding my progress. I have to stop and swat frantically at spiders crawling over any bare skin they can find. Some are small, but others are larger and hairy. A few have pushed underneath my helmet, too. I roll to the side, dumping it off as more bite my face. Panic rises while my body stretches inside the hole that’ll be my grave if I transition.
Sweat drips off of my face, but the end of the tunnel is just before me, and somehow I wiggle toward it, inching closer, needing to be free.
“Tommy!”
“I’m coming, Joelle!”
I’m blinde
d by the light as the tunnel opens up. It dumps me from high above into a large area. I’ve landed in an underground barracks fully lit by old lanterns, and I’m still punching myself, trying to remove arachnids.
My eyes adjust, and I stand to take in the scene. Joelle’s tied to a chair across the room, soaked and dripping with something while Murphy stands over her with a torch.
With a gas can in his hand, the dawning of what’s playing out weakens my knees.
“No!”
Before I even finish saying the word, he drops the lit piece of wood into her lap and the flash of ignition instantly blazes. Joelle screams a terrible sound, engulfed in flames. Her binds pop, and she lurches forward as a human fireball for only a few steps before dropping to the floor. There’s nothing to extinguish her with. I’ll be too late.
At last, I find a tarp and leap over to her now-quiet, still-burning form on the ground, wrapping her small body into it. I’m repeatedly yelling her name, even though her own terrifying screams of agony have stopped.
Jo lies slumped to the side while I continue to rock her, mumbling nonsense.
Once the smoldering has lessened, I brave a glance down. She’s gone. Her lips have burned off, revealing long canines, and her lids are burnt away, leaving only black eyes bugged out, glaring at me in accusing silence.
That look will be forever branded on my Jo-Jo’s face. I watched it happen and could do nothing.
I gently lay her down before I turn on Murphy, who’s in Vietcong fatigues, too, like the dead officer in the tunnel. His hair’s longer, like Cory’s had been, and his face is full of fear.
“I’m sorry, man! Please!”
I lift my pistol, point it at his head. He drops to his knees, still pleading.
I don’t hesitate.
I squeeze the trigger.
Chapter Thirty-Six
A slow clapping snaps me away from Murphy’s crumpled form and Joelle’s fire-ravaged body. I turn to find Cory standing there, smiling.
“Bravo,” he says.
Then, the world begins to spin, though I’m not on the axis of the turning. Instead, I’m a marble caught in the centrifugal force. It speeds faster and faster, around and around, and when I finally get it to stay still, the tunnels are gone, Cory’s back in his normal ACUs, and I’m again holding my M4 in the live-fire training, back in the hut. He’s watching me with a gleeful expression, as if there’s some joke I’m supposed to get.
I search in optimistic confusion to find no Joelle at my feet. The air leaves my lungs in a relieved rush, but I continue to look anyway. And sure enough, there in the corner, is Murphy―head blown off.
“What did you do?” I whisper.
“Me?” Cory holds up his hands, coming forward. “Are you serious? You went crazy. I couldn’t stop ya!”
I sag against the table, feeling the blood drain from my face. “What did you do to me, Cory? What did you do!”
“Hey, man, look. It was an accident, right? You don’t tell on me for using my Special during the mission, and I won’t tell on you for … for … ” Cory laughs, slapping a hand on his thigh. “For icing that little idiot, all right? Deal?”
Already my body’s tightening in that familiar coil. The horror of what I’ve done, the trick I’d fallen for, and how it’s cost an innocent man his life … it all knocks the wind from me.
Murphy’s blood is still running across the floor in a long trickle. It’s pooling at a dip in the dirt. I feel like I should call a medic. I consider Vero, but no, she can’t fix dead. I remember one time she told me she’d almost died trying to heal people past their expiration.
My shoulders hunch against the sudden realization that this cannot be fixed. The fabric of my uniform tears at the seams as I stalk toward Cory. I snag the front of his shirt and twist it until it’s tight enough to choke. “You killed him! You sadistic piece of—”
And then I have nothing in my hands, because I’m standing on a beach, all alone. Cory’s shipped me off again, but what he doesn’t know is that it’s too late. I smile at the waves lapping at my feet. He’s sent me on a vacation, and the view is much nicer this time. But really, it won’t matter.
Back wherever they are, my body’s already changing. An important factor that sets me apart from the other Specials: there’s no way to control my transition.
I should know.
I’m on a beach, and a surfer babe takes a curl on her board, the ride making her body jiggle. I’m semi-conscious of what’s going on back at the mission. Cory’s giving me a great view as I rip him to pieces.
He can trick the mind.
But the monster doesn’t need the mind.
I sense the beast pummeling him. Filtered images of Cory’s fearful face blink in front of me. They’ve broken through the hut and out into the village, and now it’s pounding him into the dirt.
Yells, cries for help, echo back, and the view shimmers as Cory takes a hard knock to the head, messing up his mental juju.
Others arrive to watch the fight while I keep an eye on my surfer girl who’s riding a second wave. Cory has good taste, I’ll give him that. Her tan body is a ten, the water runs enticingly in rivulets down her—
“Hatter!”
I feel a current.
Electricity won’t work, but it gets the beast’s attention. “Hatter!” Vero’s voice breaks through to my place here.
It cuts through the water sound and the wind like I’ve got a speaker system rigged to this world.
Familiarity works, too, at times. They have her approaching me, and I worry it’ll kill her. But I’m already feeling the pull to return. My recent transition from that night with Joelle is too close to this one, so the monster can’t stay to play anyway. He only gets his full freedom when I’m well rested, and I haven’t caught up.
I say goodbye to my dream girl only moments before I fade and am looking at glowing hands. Vero’s used her touch on the monster, so not electricity, but her Special, had zapped me back. Smart girl.
“Did I kill him?” I ask with hope.
She bites back a grin. “No.”
“Murphy,” I say, my stomach turning.
“I know.” Vero’s stormy eyes are sad while she helps me to my feet. “Nolan’s on his way.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Liza
Each night, Jeremy met me on the roof. He’d taken to calling me Liza, and I’d grown to love hearing my name come out of his mouth. Some strange agreement was struck about not tilling up freshly turned dirt from the past, so we talked mostly about writing and music, and other vague subjects.
The rebel was a yo-yo, I quickly learned. Some nights, he’d pace in a fury, fists punched in the air, arms spread wide in the fullness of his anger.
And I’d listen to him rant about the Authority, mesmerized.
Other times, he was somber, thoughtful—a side of him that drew me into the vortex of his mania.
He’s fascinating in the way you’d find the midday sun too bright to stare at. Still, at least once in your youth, you’d shade your eyes and squint into its fiery depths for as long as you could stand.
Even with so many burned in the trail of Jeremy Writer’s life—reading between the lines, it was obvious no person was left unsinged—my path led me back onto the roof each and every night. He’d say ominous things, like: “I’ve had to go my own way most times,” or: “People don’t get me like you do, Liza.”
But all sense melted away when that purple haze lingered for a beat too long. Those eyes, they were my own kind of madness.
After he’d leave, I’d write music. All at once, my room was littered with pages. Here was my father’s hope on every sheet, my place overflowed with newly composed masterpieces.
My muse was incredibly reliable. Jeremy Writer: a lyrical intoxication, passionately infused with the serious contemplation that both great men and tyrants alike shared on their sleepless nights; his driven demands for change, feeling or dreaming, always plotting, all while casting
long shadows on the people nearest to him. But which way would he tip?
Inwardly, I’d disagree at times with the utopia he predicted we’d have once we overthrew the current government, but I’d bite my flapping participle in half, because to argue with Jeremy was a practice in futility.
Even if it’s his hatred for the Authority that keeps him warm at night, it’s easy to lose myself in this boy. A tiny violin plays in the background for the destiny of our feelings.
Other days—black days, he’d show up looking stricken, faded, like he’d just taken a beating, and he’d barely speak or even write. He might talk about the purge, and I’d have nightmares after. Purging is being tortured for months by the Authority until pain is no longer felt. The result? A guard. They’re not soulless, he said, but maybe really screwed up, and most definitely brainwashed.
Jeremy rarely spoke about his anarchy group, too. I suppose he surmised it’d be safer for me to know as little as possible.
We’ve gotten good at spreading out the favorite topics, but how long can we retell our same stories?
He never says why he comes so often to see me. And the reason I always wait for him is left hanging, as well. Can we abide the silence, knowing it will bring intimacy?
Time magnifies the surreal until it just becomes … real.
Upon my broaching the subject about his maybe needing a break when he seemed burned out, he wouldn’t come visit for two whole days after.
When he finally returned, he sat with me and told me how I’m a still water, a balm to his soul … that he’d missed me. He told me I balance his life right now.
This is worrisome.
What I don’t tell him is that he’s like four people in one and I’m in no position to balance that type of chaos.
What I don’t tell him is that he cuts me deeply by punishing me with his lack of visits for asking him the tough questions a real friend might.
Or how I’ve never been so angry in all my life when I’d realize that’s what he’d done.
What I don’t say is, “How dare you!”