The last circus zombie fell on its own, its limbs dropping from its body like an overbuild chicken. It hadn’t rested there long before the people of Peculiar stomped it flat as they ran screaming, some eyeless, blood streaming down their faces.
“Brick,” Skid yelled toward him, but he couldn’t hear her.
Damn it.
The motorcycle, the same model bike daredevil Evel Knievel once drove, purred not ten feet from her. She stomped the ground. Double damn it.
She ran to the bike and hopped on. The seat vibrated beneath her.
“I hate this,” she said, grabbing the handlebars and revving the throttle. The motor roared. “I haven’t met you, but I hate you, Karl Miller.” A Peculiar native ran past her, his eyes gone. “And Dad, I don’t like you much, either.”
The motorcycle felt familiar beneath her. She hadn’t been on one since the day of the trick, the day she woke up in the hospital, when she swore she’d never get on the back another bike again, ever. Seriously fucking ever. Skid spat on the ground and popped the bike in gear. Dirt and blood spun under the rear wheel, and the American Eagle shot toward Brick.
The Wisconsin couple sat on the blood-soaked ground, rubbing numb arms freed from their bonds by Brick. He tried to talk to them, but with the sword in his hand and the gore splattered across his face, he looked like a madman.
The bike slid to a stop closer to the Wisconsin couple than Skid would have liked.
“Brick.”
He didn’t turn around, too focused on the husband, whose face was frozen in terror. Skid reached out and slapped Brick’s shoulder. “Hey.”
Brick’s head turned slowly. “What?”
“We gotta get out of here,” she said, holding out the hand she’d used to hit him.
He ignored it. “You need to leave,” he told the couple. A woman in a pleated skirt ran screeching toward Brick, the flesh ripped from her cheeks, teeth showing red and white through the dangling shreds of meat. He grabbed the bloody woman’s shoulders and spun like a discus thrower, heaving her into an oncoming man who had ripped skin off his own face. “Now.”
The Wisconsin woman nodded and shook her man. He didn’t move.
“Brick,” Skid screamed.
Brick stood slowly, wiping the blood and strips of flesh from his sword before sliding it into his backpack. “Okay.”
Skid jerked her head behind her. Brick didn’t look like he understood, so she did it again.
“You want me to ride Wookie?” he asked.
“What?”
“Pillion,” he said, laying his hand on the small patch of leather at the end of the seat. “You want me to ride pillion.”
“Yeah, I guess.” More frantic townspeople had poured into the center ring; a man slammed into Brick’s shoulder and fell backward. Brick didn’t act like he noticed. “No one calls it that,” she said. “Get your ass on the bike.”
He ran his blood-streaked fingers through his hair and climbed onto the seat behind her. The bike frame groaned in protest.
“Bitch,” she said.
“What did you call me?”
She put the bike in gear and swung the nose around toward the open flap the townspeople had herded them through only minutes earlier. The couple from Wisconsin ran toward the opposite flap in the tent.
“It’s called riding bitch,” she shouted over her shoulder.
“That’s patently offensive,” Brick said into her ear.
“You’re telling me.” Skid gunned the throttle, and they shot through the howling mass. “Bitch.”
3
The motorcycle died two miles later, the once clean and shiny machine sickening beneath them. Bits of rust flecked off in the breeze as Skid drove. The American Eagle coughed and sputtered, slowing to a crawl before the engine stopped entirely and the rear tire blew under Brick’s weight. Brick now stood on the rural highway facing west as Skid used the bike for balance, its tires weather-cracked, the front one hissing as it sank toward the asphalt.
“Should you really be doing that right now?” he asked.
“Girls have to pee, too,” she said behind him.
“I know. I have a sister. She had to go at weird times.” He pointed toward the western horizon, but Skid wasn’t looking. “Another wave is coming. Are they more frequent now? Or is it just me?” A movement behind him and a zip told Brick it was okay to turn around. He didn’t.
Skid stepped next to him. “I haven’t been keeping track, Poindexter.” These weren’t the rolling, purple, lighting-filled clouds they’d watched roll over them in Orcland and 1957 Atomic Dinosaurville. The green wave cascading toward them more resembled a clumsy puppy than a storm. “Weird. It’s actually kind of cute.”
A thick, hairy forearm extended itself protectively over her chest, but Brick still hadn’t looked at her. “I think we should hide in the ditch,” he said, taking a step back. Skid stood her ground until Brick’s arm hit her shoulders.
“This isn’t a torna—”
The wave threw out what looked like a tentacle that slammed into the highway, digging through the asphalt and concrete, pinching it to find a purchase before pulling itself forward. Brick dove, wrapping his arms around Skid in a textbook tackle and they dropped into the weed- and beer can–filled ditch. The Miller Wave rolled over them, lashing out with tendrils of solid smoke that fell like a net.
“Oh, no,” squeaked from Skid as the cloud dragged them into darkness.
4
Skid’s air shot from her when she hit the ground, sandwiched between concrete and Brick. Black specks swam in her eyes as she tried to focus, the world around her dim. It took a few seconds to figure out why: the sun had dipped behind the buildings.
The cornfields were gone, the highway was gone, the rusting motorcycle was gone. A dirty alley and concrete had taken their place, and a taller skyline loomed in the distance. The place looked familiar, but it sure wasn’t Peculiar.
“Get off,” she tried to say, but nothing came out.
“Skid?” Brick asked. “Skid, you okay?”
He shifted slightly and some wind found its way back into her lungs. “Get off,” she wheezed.
He rolled to one side and grunted, his backpack bumping against a wall. “Where are we?” he asked.
She sucked in and pushed out air, her chest ached.
“We survived a fire-breathing dinosaur, and your ass almost crushed me.” She lifted herself onto her elbows. The shadow Brick lay in was filled with dented beer cans and a couple of greasy pizza boxes. “Why now? We were almost there, Brick.”
He pulled himself to his feet and held out a hand. She took it, her legs still wobbly, either from the horror circus or Brick’s weight.
“Maybe we still are,” he said.
“What?” She pointed to a nearby door to a cheesy nightclub. “This obviously isn’t a cornfield in the middle of BFE. Do you know where the lab is? In a cornfield in the middle of BFE.”
He waved his hand in front of him. “I know. You’re right. But every place and every time these Miller Waves have taken us has been somewhere we needed to be. To hook up with Dave at the ax murder house, to the D&D world to see what Karl had done, to 1957 to—”
“Something weird happened to Cord in 1957.”
Brick’s face grew serious. “Maybe something weird was supposed to happen to Cord in 1957. This is you and me, Skid, and sometimes Cord, and sometimes Cord and the waitress, and someti—”
“You’ve lost your mind,” she said.
A car door shut from somewhere down the alley, and the high-pitched sounds of drunken girls spilled out.
“No. I haven’t. There’s a reason we’re here. We’re connected to this on a—I don’t know—dimensional level? Spiritual level? Molecular level? But the night you met David Collison and I met the guy who wasn’t him at Slap Happy’s Dance Club, we became part of it.” He stopped and loo
ked around. “Hey, I know where we are.”
A door creaked open on a spring from down the alley and snapped shut, a woman stepped out. “Jesus, Lou, you’re making me abandon my date for this,” she said into a mobile phone. “A house fire? It better be a damn important house. I was having a good time. I hope he understands when I call him later.”
Oh, shit. Skid felt Brick’s body tense behind her. She turned and slammed both hands into his chest, catching him off guard and sending him into the wall. He started to speak, but she slapped a hand over his hairy mouth and pressed hard.
“That’s Beverly,” she said, her voice low and sharp. “But it’s not our Beverly. I think it’s last Friday’s Beverly.”
Beverly walked by them on her way to a parking lot at the end of the alley, her unnecessarily large smartphone over the left side of her face, obscuring the two filth-smeared crazy people in the shadows.
“Shit,” she said, moving the phone in front of her face. “I lost his number. Goddamnit, Lou.”
Brick relaxed as he watched the girl he thought had dumped him walk to the end of the alley and disappear behind the side of the building, dressed in the first thing he’d ever seen her in. Skid released her hand.
“She told me she left because her boss called while she was in the bathroom. Some kind of emergency.” The big man’s voice sounded far away. “She said she didn’t have time to say good-bye. This proves it. She was having a good time, Skid. You heard it. She didn’t ditch me.”
Skid slapped his chest. “Focus, Brick. You said we were here for a reason, and that reason is not to stalk your girlfriend, ish, thingy.” She dropped her hands to her hips. “You’ve only known her a couple of hours. You’re aware of that, right?”
“Yeah, but it seems longer.”
A thought crossed Skid’s mind. “We’re in an alley behind Slap Happy’s, right?”
Brick nodded. “Yeah.”
“Where the past seven days of hell started, right?”
“Yeah.”
She stepped away from Brick, walking backward toward the rear door of Slap Happy’s. “Then we’re here to warn ourselves. That has to be it.”
Brick seemed to snap out of his Beverly haze. “No. That might not be it. We could be here to intercept Dave in the murder house; it’s only a couple blocks away. Or we could be here to talk him into going back to the lab before everything goes crazy, or I might be wrong. This could all be random, and the past week was for nothing.”
Skid slapped her bicep with an open palm and shot her fist into the air before she strode toward the back door to Slap Happy’s.
5
“She will be here soon, Karl,” Clean-David said, waving the pistol in no particular direction. Dave shifted in his seat each time the barrel ventured anywhere close to him. “We have to be ready.”
“For what?” He leaned against the wall, trying to look calm and cool instead of constipated. “For a person to break into this high-security facility, make it through a hallway teaming with hungry Human Resources cockroaches, walk down stairs for which worst-case-scenario safety protocols have been activated, and into this locked room where I have a gun?”
“I have the gun,” Clean-David said, holding it up.
“Where New Collison has a gun,” Karl finished. “I’m shaking.”
“You should be,” both David Collisons said in unison.
Karl ignored them and looked at his watch. “The unit that went into the void yesterday at 1300 hours should be reporting back in about three hours. At that point, you can go screw yourself, Collison.”
Dave knew he shouldn’t, but he smiled anyway. “Were those the Army guys who usually guard the fence?”
“Yes,” Karl said. “Why?”
Then they won’t be there to stop Skid.
“Oh, nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
6
The hallway smelled of ozone and vomit. The spring-controlled door smacked closed behind Skid then opened almost immediately. Brick stepped through.
“I remember that smell,” he said.
The door labeled “Hookers” swung open, and three drunken college-aged girls walked out. One’s face was pale, her eyes nearly closed.
“Oh my god,” one of the girls said, looking Brick and Skid up and down. “Homeless. Eww.” She put her arm around her friend and walked away. Her foot slid on the floor outside the “Johns” door. Skid was disappointed the girl didn’t fall. The third Barbie held the door to the dance club, music pounding down the hall, and as they left, the two who hadn’t drunk themselves sick giggled.
“Watch out for the blood,” Brick said, nodding toward the floor. “That’s where Not-David stopped me. He had a knife wound in his leg and bled everywhere.”
Knife? Did I? She wondered, because she knew she probably did, or someone very much like her.
The spots on the floor were shaped like a man’s shoes, except the one the drunken girl had slipped in.
Something on the floor did not belong. A cigarette butt or fragment of glass from a broken beer bottle she would expect in a classy joint like Slap Happy’s. But there, on the floor, was a key on a short fob. She squatted and picked it up, the blade thin and wide, the tip square, its teeth rectangular.
“What did you find?” Brick asked, looming over her shoulder.
“Maybe something.” She stood, shoving it into her rear pants pocket. “Maybe nothing.” Skid stepped over the blood spots and walked to the door back to the club. “Why the hell did I ever come to this place?” she said as she opened it, her voice drowned by “Old Town Road.”
“What?” Brick shouted.
She waved him off. Everything was irrelevant except the scene before her, where last week’s Brick started toward the dance floor. He stood at least a head above everyone. His attention was focused across the room, where last week’s Skid sat with last week’s Dave. Most of the people around them were oblivious to everything, but the few standing nearby gawked at last week’s Skid as she pulled absolutely the wrong knife from the bar and nailed the beer poster model across the room right between the baby blues. A few people clapped, but not a sixty-something woman with graying hair pulled back in a ponytail. She stood a couple of people away from last week’s Skid and Dave, just staring. On the other side of the woman stood Cord and Carla. What?
Last week’s Dave said something she could in no way hear and last week’s Skid punched him in the face. The scientist fell backward and vanished.
“We’re too late,” Skid breathed. Then she disappeared too.
7
Brick didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all. If they were at Slap Happy’s Dance Club on the night of September 1 to warn themselves not do something, they’d gotten there too late. They’d already missed intercepting Not-David. Last week’s Skid had already done her knife trick. Dave was about to disappear any second, and—
Oh, wait. He’s gone.
But nobody seemed to notice, or care, except for an older athletic woman whose dark hair was streaked with white. She stepped away from the bar, gaze fixed on the spot where Dave had vanished. She’d seen it.
“Hey,” he said aloud, although no one heard him. “I know her.” The other Brick stepped forward, blocking his view. Brick shuffled to the side, exactly where he’d stood one week ago for twenty minutes waiting for Beverly to come out of the bathroom.
The woman was Katie, who came into Manic Muffins after her morning jog to order a black coffee and chocolate muffin. The same Katie who suggested he create a rectangular red velvet cream-filled muffin and call it The Brick. “What is Katie doing in a crappy place like this?” Then he saw Cord and Carla.
“Skid,” he said, but Skid wasn’t next to him anymore. A millisecond later, neither was he.
8
The forest was thin and orderly. Skid stood alone in the shadow of a large hoary oak surrounded by younger, even
ly spaced trees—land that should have been choked with brambles and the rotted remains of older trees, but had been cleared. This wasn’t a raw forest. It might have been a park, if not for the soldiers.
Brick appeared behind her and stumbled before catching himself on the oak.
“Whoa,” he said, too loudly.
“Shhh,” she hissed and pointed past the tree. About ten yards through the woods lay a flat strip of land about twenty yards wide, bare but for the short-cropped grass and a metal signpost. The lawn ended at a high concrete wall. Next to a post that read “Das Hinterland” on one side and “Nue Merica” on the other, four soldiers stood in field gray uniforms and caps, assault rifles over their shoulders. They didn’t seem to realize Skid and Brick had just stepped out of nothingness and were gawking at them with open mouths.
“What the hell?” Brick said, quieter this time.
“I’m not sure your hypothesis about being somewhere for a reason pans out,” she whispered.
The Miller Wave had washed them into this world in the middle of the soldiers’ conversation. One of them held up a finger and said, “Er sagte, ich weiß nicht, fragen Sie den Metzger,” and the other three laughed.
Brick sucked in his breath and leaned closer to the tree, putting it in front of as much of himself as he could. “What the hell?” he repeated, bending close to Skid’s ear. “Did we go back to the 1940s? Those are Germans in Nazi uniforms.”
Whatever Skid might have said was interrupted by the ringing of a cell phone. One of the soldiers pulled a sleek silver rectangle from his pocket.
“Entschuldigen Sie mich,” the soldier said, looking down at the screen. A frown grew over the smile. He made a talking motion with his hand as he put the mobile up to his ear, then cupped the hand close to the microphone to mask the other soldiers’ laughter.
So You Had to Build a Time Machine Page 26