With a mute nod, Minji agreed and they continued down the drive. When they reached the wide footway, they found it littered with bodies, crashed vehicles, chunks of helicopters, and rubble. The mesmerized filled the road and spilled onto the sidewalk. It would be challenging to find a path for the stretcher.
“We should get off the boulevard,” Arthur suggested. “There are so many people...”
“I have a feeling every road will be like this,” Simone answered. “And with the way things are deteriorating, we shouldn’t take detours.”
“I say we try the straight shot unless it becomes impassable. I hate to say it but,” Minji gestured toward the devastation in the direction of the airport and the Luxor, “all that destruction is thinning the herd.”
With a weary, defeated sigh, Arthur dipped his head. “Fine.”
With Bailey snoozing on her back, Minji threaded her way through the tangle of bodies and wreckage. She attempted to keep a little distance between their small group and the crowd of mesmerized, but it became increasingly impossible to maneuver through the maze of crashed cars. Eventually, they ended up as part of the silent parade.
The journey was agonizingly slow at times. Arthur made it more difficult by jumping whenever one of the mesmerized brushed against him. Once he nearly toppled the stretcher.
“They’re not zombies,” Minji hissed.
Arthur shot her a doubting look, but helped with the stretcher again.
Simone remained silent, watching the surroundings intently. Like Arthur, she appeared wary of the mesmerized, but wasn’t as high-strung. Minji understood their discomfort. Being engulfed in the crowd of mesmerized was eerie. The vacant expressions, the terrible wounds, and slow pace were unnervingly reminiscent of the zombies in horror movies. Minji understood, though, that the transfixed people were victims just like her husband and daughter.
It was difficult to contain her mounting dread and revulsion. There was so much carnage and the smell of death, roasting flesh, ash, and fire made it difficult to keep calm.
Death was all around them.
A woman bleeding profusely from deep wounds staggered alongside Minji’s small group until she crumpled to the ground. The bluish tinge to her skin and the rattle of her last breath told the sad end to her life story. She’d bled to death and not even known it.
“I really, really don’t like this,” Arthur said in hushed tones.
The steady stamp of feet almost drowned out his voice.
“They’re not zombies,” Minji repeated crossly.
“Then what are they?” Arthur demanded.
“The mesmerized,” Simone replied with a wry smile.
“But what does that mean?” Jerking sharply to one side, Arthur avoided a cluster of men pushing past him. “Where are they even going?”
No one answered, since no one knew.
The Stratosphere Tower loomed ahead, a shining white marker to indicate the end of their expedition. Clouds of black smoke drifted overhead.
Staring upward at the thick haze, Minji said, “Vegas is burning and nothing will stop it.”
“We need to get out of the city,” Arthur declared.
“With the streets like this?” Simone glanced about at the smashed vehicles.
“It has to be better further out,” Arthur defiantly answered.
“Why?” Simone lifted her eyebrows. “Because you say so? How far do you think this phenomenon extends?”
“Las Vegas,” Arthur stammered. “The terrorists struck here like they did in New York on 9-11.”
Simone gave him a doubtful look.
Minji dragged the stretcher around a cluster of crumpled taxis. Within the cabs the passengers and drivers flailed about, attempting to join the other mesmerized.
“It’s not just Las Vegas. It extended further than just here,” Minji said. “We all know it. Didn’t you feel it? The attacks? The disorientation?”
“I went blind. More than once,” Simone admitted. “I even froze at one point before breaking free.”
Shuffling his feet as they skirted alongside a bus rammed into a storefront, Arthur grumbled under his breath.
“What was that?” Simone lifted Ava onto her hip and squeezed between a police car and a shuttle bus ignoring the mesmerized clamoring to get out.
“It happened to me, too! Okay? It happened to me, too!”
Minji strung her thoughts into one coherent string and said, “I think the attack came in waves. Extending outward, getting stronger. Like waves of a tsunami. Building.”
“I was almost to The Venetian when I saw the helicopters going down.” Simone tilted her head, gazing back to where they had come from. The smoke was so thick it was difficult to make out the shapes of the distinctive resorts like The Venetian. “That was the next really big attack after the initial one.”
“So how far did that one spread?” Minji hesitated, trying to discern how to get through the next tangle of bodies, vehicles and rubble.
Arthur let out a loud, startling sob. “There was a line between the event and the unaffected area. That’s what those people said at the rescue center. On the news they said to get out of the event if we were able. I did that! I should’ve been rescued. I should be on my way home to my family!”
Simone dropped back a few paces and gently patted his shoulder. “But the big second attack came and it pushed the event outward.” The man’s torment appeared to soften Simone’s view of him.
“But how far?” Arthur asked, his voice cracking. “How far did it spread?”
Minji dreaded to know the answer.
Arthur blinked his eyes rapidly, fighting tears. “This damn smoke...burning my eyes…”
The two women shared a significant look, but said nothing. They were all close to an emotional breaking point. Their physical condition wasn’t doing much better. Minji struggled to keep walking despite the stitch in her side. Bailey was still asleep, but she needed to be fed and changed soon. It was difficult to look at Ava and Jake and see their mouths oddly flexing beneath empty eyes.
It was a surreal journey past pirate ships, crashed flying saucers, castles, and towering hotels glittering in the shards of sunlight slicing through the thick, dark haze looming overhead. Automatic doorways continued to unleash more mesmerized onto the strip as they found their way to the front entrances of stores, casinos, and restaurants.
“Are we really the only people not affected?” Minji wondered aloud.
Just as the words left her mouth, the sensation of thousands of ice cold snakes writhing over her skin sent her stumbling into the rear of a van. Bailey woke up with a start and let out a cry of dismay. The sharp needle pricks assailed her brain and stole her breath away. For a single beat of her heart, her vision was stolen and replaced by the terrifying vision she had witnessed before. The colors, the sounds, the beauty, the terror…
“It’s happening again,” she gasped as her eyesight returned.
Looking toward Simone and Arthur, she saw that they were frozen in place, their eyes rolled upward.
Chapter 13
West Texas
2 PM
“Sir, we cannot allow you to enter the area,” the sheriff repeated.
Ruben rubbed his nose and shuffled his feet as he watched the news reporter attempting to stare down the local sheriff. Having lived in the area his whole life, the young man knew there was no way the uber-clean, uber-handsome man from a big news network was going to convince the sheriff to do his bidding. During Ruben’s wild high school days he’d had his fair share of run-ins with the local sheriff department while speeding on the county roads at obscene hours of the night. The deputies were all hard asses, just like Sheriff Parker. The tall, eagle-eyed silver-haired man in his severe brown uniform did not flinch when the reporter bombarded him with a dozen reasons why he should be allowed past the two vehicles forming a barricade along the two lane country road.
Narrowing his eyes at the area just beyond the police barricade, Ruben observed the
flat expanse of the plains covered in brush and populated by the transfixed people of his town.
“Can you believe this?” Ruben drawled in his thick Texas accent, folding his arms over his stocky chest.
Beside him, his best friend Chuck slid his bony fingers through his thick blond hair. “This is all sorts of fucked up. Do you think Esmer and Terry are out there?”
With a sick feeling in his gut, Ruben nodded. “My sisters are in the affected area, so yeah. Luckily Mom and Dad are still visiting friends in Eastland, so they’re safe.”
“For now. The news is reporting this thing spreads from here to California and up through Utah. This is some serious shit.” Wiping his sunburned neck with his kerchief, Chuck exhaled loudly.
Ruben and Chuck had just finished eating lunch and were returning to their jobs on a nearby ranch when they’d heard about the terrifying event gripping the western part of the country. Then the somber news that their hometown nearby was also affected reached the men and they had raced in the direction of Ruben’s home to check on his sisters. The two sheriff cars blocking the road had been a punch to the gut. Ruben surveyed the area thoughtfully, trying to formulate a plan. He had to save his sisters. With his parents away, he was in charge of his two younger siblings. Though he didn’t feel like much of an adult at twenty, he took his responsibilities very seriously.
Leaning toward Chuck, he whispered, “With Sheriff Parker distracted, maybe I can scoot along the fence by those trees. I need to get out there and find my sisters.”
“Dude, that’s all sorts of a bad idea. You might catch it.”
“Catch what?”
“What they got, Ruben.”
Ruben snorted. “We’re already exposed, Chuck. There’s nothing between us and them but fresh air.”
“That don’t mean it’s not catching, bro.” Chuck shook his head reluctantly. “You can’t risk it.”
“I gotta save my sisters,” Ruben said, a little more loudly than he intended.
Chuck shushed him, jerking his head toward the two men. It was clear that Sherriff Parker and reporter were not about to budge from their standoff.
“Have you tried to waken them?” the reporter was asking.
“Sir, those folks don’t know what the hell is going on and I can’t send anyone out there,” the sheriff answered.
“Why not?” The reporter was intent on getting his story and the lines of his face stood out sharply as he clenched his jaw in anger.
“Because you can’t cross the line. I got two deputies out there with the rest of the folk. Once you go twenty feet down the road, you become affected.”
Ruben and Chuck glanced at each other.
“See?” Chuck said.
“Shit.”
Sheriff Parker walked to a Texas Border Patrol SUV coming to a halt nearby. A deputy took the sheriff’s place between the two parked vehicles and stared down the reporter.
The man in the rolled up sleeves and tie with the perfectly coiffed hair turned to his cameraman with dismay. “How the hell are we supposed to get a story if they won’t let us into the affected area?”
The tall, hefty cameraman with a shock of red hair poking out from underneath his Rangers baseball cap didn’t lower his camera as he answered. “We should just run for it. What can they do to us?”
Ruben and Chuck side-eyed each other as they listened.
The barricade was a bit of yellow tape strung between the sheriff’s vehicle and the deputy’s. Though there were fences on both sides of the strip of asphalt, past the police line was an open road with only a few trucks crashed into the fence posts.
A silent agreement must have passed between the reporter and the cameraman because they both burst into a sprint and darted around the far side of the deputy’s car.
“Idiots,” the deputy declared, but didn’t follow. He turned to watch the two men racing up the road.
“Let’s go,” Ruben whispered to Chuck. “I need to get my sisters.”
“Wait!” Chuck said, grabbing his arm, his eyes widening. Following his friend’s gaze, Ruben saw the two men shudder to a halt. The heavy, expensive camera toppled from the shoulder of the redhead and smashed against the blacktop. In unison they started a slow walk after the other affected people.
The deputy chuckled.
“What the—?” Ruben exclaimed. “How?”
“We need to get out of here,” Chuck said turning toward the old work truck. “We need to go now!”
“But...that...how...” Ruben gripped the sides of his head, his spiky hair pricking his palms. “How?”
A second later Ruben’s terrified thoughts were drowned in a vast, icy void. Dropping his hands, he staggered forward and through the yellow tape. It caught on his belt buckle and held him for a brief second before dislodging from the sheriff’s car and trailing on the ground like a long snake. Along with the deputy, sheriff and border patrolman, Ruben joined the mesmerized.
Chapter 14
Las Vegas
2 PM
Ava slipped from Simone’s grip, landed on her feet, and pivoted toward Minji, pulling the air filter from her mouth. Pink lips straining, Ava appeared to be attempting to speak. Minji stumbled toward her daughter, hope gripping her heart until she realized that Ava’s eyes were doll-like: empty and glassy. Replacing the face mask over Ava’s mouth, Minji realized the other mesmerized had come to a halt. Eerily, their lips flexed and twisted in perfect synchronization.
Arthur and Simone remained paralyzed, their eyelids fluttering. It reminded her vividly of the tourist woman and her male companion in his tennis whites in the seconds before they started to hemorrhage. Fearful her two acquaintances were about to suffer the fate of so many others and bleed to death in seconds, Minji drew Ava away from Simone.
In terrible anticipation, Minji waited.
A low whistling emanated from Simone’s throat, and then she blinked several times.
“Heeeeee...” Arthur exhaled, sounding like he was trying to form a word. Then he stumbled forward, one hand rising to his face. “Ugh, that sucked.”
Simone winced, shaking her head while pressing her fingertips to her temples. “That was quite painful.”
Minji had been so convinced she was about to witness their deaths it was jarring to see them shaking off the effects of their paralysis. Both had been immune to the earlier attacks, so why had this one affected them differently? Could she be certain that she hadn’t been caught in the grip of this newest attack when she’d gone blind briefly? Had that moment stretched longer than she believed?
“You were frozen again,” Minji said, her words roughened with fear.
“I don’t think so,” Simone said after a few seconds of awkward silence.
Both Arthur and Simone regarded Minji with disbelief stamped on their faces.
“I didn’t go blind or blank out,” Arthur said defensively.
“It just hurt like a bitch,” Simone added.
“No, you both stopped moving and your eyes rolled up.” Minji cautiously touched the back of Simone’s hand. “Your skin is really cold.”
Pressing her palm to her cheek, Simone frowned, uncertainty settling into the lines around her mouth.
Arthur shook his head. “I know I wasn’t affected.”
“But you were,” Minji insisted.
The mesmerized staggered into motion, resuming their march, but Ava didn’t stir at Minji’s side, or attempt to join the others. She continued to stare at Minji, her mouth contorting into odd shapes.
Meanwhile, Simone took a sharp step out of the way of several seriously wounded mesmerized, grievous burns and gashes inflicted on their bodies. The group appeared to have come from further down the Las Vegas Strip. Arthur scuttled around to hop onto the hood of a car. From the scared look on his face, it was evident he expected the mesmerized to turn into cannibals and attempt to eat him. Visibly trembling, the man watched the gruesome parade pass by.
Minji kept Ava at her side. She wasn’t afraid
of the mesmerized, but she felt helpless in the face of their suffering. With firm pushes of one hand, she redirected the affected away from the stretcher. In her peripheral vision, Jake strained to gaze at her, his lips stretching and twisting beneath the face mask as though he were struggling to speak.
One man hobbled past her on what appeared to be a broken ankle. His face and hair were charred, his skin cracking and oozing. After walking several paces, he stopped, then twisted about in his tracks to look at Minji. Eyes wide but empty, his mouth opened and closed, once again reminding her of a gasping fish.
“Why is he doing that?” Arthur nervously scrambled off the hood he was perched on and attempted to hide behind a cluster of palm trees on the boulevard median.
“Heeeee...” the man said hoarsely.
Minji cautiously approached the man. “I think he’s asking for help.”
“They’re making the same noise,” Simone said, gesturing to Ava and Jake.
“And they’re looking at you, Minji. Why are they looking at you?” Arthur aimed an accusing glare at her.
“I don’t know, okay? I have no idea.” Minji was very unnerved by how the man’s eyes tracked her movements. A rapid glance at Jake and Ava revealed they were also observing her with those strangely blank stares. “Do you want help?”
“Heeee...” the three chorused.
Simone roughly shoved the man on his way. “Move it.”
“Simone!”
The burned man stumbled from the momentum of Simone’s thrust, then recovered his balance. Minji fully expected him to turn and stare at her again, but he trudged after the rest of the horde.
“Minji, we can’t deal with anyone else. We need to get Jake and Ava to the medical center and hope there’s someone that can treat them. We can’t help everyone!” Simone briskly walked to the end of the stretcher and took up Arthur’s old spot. “Let’s move before more of them decide you’re the greatest show on Earth.”
Running on the balls of his feet in an attempt to be quiet, Arthur rushed over and grabbed the hand holds in the front of the stretcher. “I say we go fast, because this is getting really, really disturbing.”
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