Dying Light

by Kory M. Shrum

  In my search, I stumbled across an interesting BBC article about a woman named Jin Go who lived in an apartment complex in South Korea. The 67-year-old grocer claims that one day a woman she knew, Minli Yang, had stopped to buy vegetables. Only when Minli went to pay for the vegetables she’d selected, Jin Go couldn’t accept the money. Go claimed that as she reached for the money, a horrible light shot out of Yang’s hands and into Go’s eyes. Go was permanently blinded and the authorities are searching for Yang, whom they’ve been unable to find.

  Go claims she was not surprised that the girl would shine a terrible light into her eyes and steal her vegetables, given her recent poverty since the death of her father. Neighbors of Yang’s living complex confirmed they too had seen strange lights coming from Yang’s windows at all hours of the night, leaving authorities to believe that perhaps she’d been practicing with the light-emitting device before actually using it on the grocer.

  The article encourages anyone who sees Yang to report her whereabouts to the authorities. A picture of a petite woman with long sleek hair and big black eyes accompanied the article.

  Monroe Dupree was also on the run.

  A neighbor told authorities that he heard gunfire next door and ran to check on Dupree, believing the man had attempted suicide for a third time. However, when he arrived, he couldn’t find Dupree or anyone else in the house. When he searched the yard, he believed he saw Dupree running off in the direction of the swamp, but told authorities that couldn’t be right. I must’ve seen a shadow ‘cause no one would wander out there with them gators at this time of night, with the wind a-howling like it was.

  The neighbor also claims he saw a black sedan speeding out of the shared gravel driveway, heading in the direction of town.

  Now I have two names at least. Two potential threats or allies.

  “Got her.” A grin spreads across Gloria’s face. She leans forward on her elbows, coming out of her seat at the table and grabbing a pad of paper and a pencil resting a foot away. “He’s holding her in the First Church of the New World.”

  “Goose Island?” Nikki reassembles her clean gun and smiles.

  I give her a definite, do-you-have-to do-that-at-the-table stare. Really though, I’m thrilled she’s found something to occupy herself.

  “Yes.” Gloria turns the laptop toward me so I can see the blinking red dot representing Jesse. “I’ll notify our backup.”

  Nikki and I exchange a glance. I wet my lips and turn to Gloria. “Gloria, when are we going to meet this backup?

  Gloria doesn’t even look up from the computer. “When they decide it’s time.”

  Nikki puts the clean gun to the side and selects another. “So what’s the plan? Just go in guns blazing?”

  “I don’t have a gun,” I remind them.

  Nikki arches her eyebrows. “You need one.”

  “Do I?” My sarcasm is loud and clear. I don’t believe violence can be ended with more violence. It seems like an idiotic idea to me. Why would doing the thing you want to stop, make the thing stop?

  “You don’t have to carry,” Gloria says. “Not everyone in a war carries a gun.”

  “What she said.”

  “Of course, those soldiers usually die first. Or become POWs,” Gloria adds with a shrug.

  I like this answer a little less.

  Gloria closes the laptop and reaches across the table to grab her sketchbook. “I’ll view the church, the situation, and based on what I see, we can finalize the plan.”

  “And while you’re doing that, I’ll keep researching Monroe Dupree.” I search for my bag, computer and notes. I was so footsore when I came through the door, I don’t even remember where I dropped them.

  The television kicks on behind us. Nikki and I both jump to our feet.

  “What the hell?” Nikki asks. “Do you have a ghost?”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” Gloria says.

  The fact remains that the TV in the room came to life all on its own. I take a step toward it.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t do that,” Nikki says, her voice higher.

  “Are you scared of ghosts?” I’m trying to sound casual, teasing. But it is a little strange.

  “What is it saying?” Gloria asks.

  As if on command, the volume on the television goes up. I can actually see the button moving.

  “—continue to argue about the condition of Earth’s magnetic field. Scientist Ralph J. Grangerson says this: ‘While it is true that the magnetic field is weaker today than it was fifty years ago, we do not have enough data to understand the ramifications of this observation. It could well be true that the field weakens and strengthens regularly and has for billions of years. Much like climate change, it could be part of a larger cycle.’”

  “Other scientists argue that the weakening magnetic field is a serious problem. “Dr. Taylor Rickets of Henrichs University has this to say: ‘Without a magnetic field, life on Earth won’t last long. One solar storm could exterminate life on the planet, or render it uninhabitable. And if that doesn’t kill us, the radiation will, slowly.’”

  Caldwell appears on the television, his legs crossed and fingers laced in the perfect portrait of composure. Even his hair is slicked back into place. The word LIVE flashes on the bottom right side of the screen.

  “He changed his suit,” Nikki says, as if this is the most important thing to notice.

  “The Bible tells us that the end times are near,” Caldwell pantomimes sympathy and seriousness. “This may put fear into your hearts, I know. But have faith, for we are the children of God. And he will keep us safe under his wing.”

  The television clicks off.

  “What the hell?” Nikki stands, knocking back her chair.

  “I’m sure there is a rational explanation.” I struggle to keep my breath steady and my mind clear.

  “Do ghosts frighten you?” Gloria asks her, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

  Nikki’s cheeks flame bright red and her nostrils flare.

  “Really? In a world like ours?” Gloria says as if Nikki had spoken.

  “The dead stay dead.” Nikki puts her hands on her hips. “They’re at peace.”

  It sounds like a bizarre mantra that one might tell oneself in order to not be afraid. Though why Nikki has a readily available mantra about the dead, I’m not sure.

  “It’s strange,” I agree, not wanting Nikki to feel like we are excluding her, making her out to be paranoid. “It turns on for some program about magnetic fields and shows Caldwell’s face and then turns off again? Why? And did you see the way he snake-eyed the camera. How many people do you think he’s manipulating?”

  “Millions,” Nikki says, some of her calm returning.

  Gloria says nothing. Her eyes fall to her sketchbook again.

  “Gloria,” I ask. “Do you have an explanation?”

  “It’s your TV,” Nikki says. “Does it do this?”

  “Sometimes,” Gloria admits.

  Nikki continues to stand in the middle of the room looking from the television to me to Gloria as if waiting for instructions. When neither of us give her any solid ground, she’s forced to recover herself. “It is an old television. Maybe there’s a bizarre electrical problem or something. My grandfather had an ancient alarm clock that would click on and play Etta James all by itself once in a while.”

  Gloria doesn’t look worried, so I find it easier to keep my own panic under control.

  I try to remember what we were doing before this happened, but my mind is distracted doing the math. If Caldwell is dressed and giving live press conferences, he isn’t cutting off Jesse’s head. And it seems unlikely that he could give a press conference if he was recovering from having killed her. After all, he’d have to reboot just as Jesse did, right?

  I look up from my thoughts to find Gloria watching me.

  “No she’s not dead,” Gloria confirms. “Not yet.”

  Chapter 28

  Jesse


  No. I roll over on the bed, turning away from Gabriel. I’m still not talking to you.

  “You are talking to me.”

  I cut off the mind speech, refusing to say anything else. This is punishment for him being so secretive and getting me into this mess. I stare at the cinder-block wall of my little cell, noting the thick lines between each stone and flecks in the white paint that reveal the gray rock beneath.

  Die to save the world. Don’t die and the world dies.

  I can’t wrap my head around the idea, though I know I should be able to. This is just a larger representation of what I already do, right? I die so others don’t have to.

  So why is it so crazy to think I am going to do it for the whole world?

  My throat contracts and a little sound escapes.

  “Would I wake up?” I roll over and stare up at the ceiling. “Like all the other times I die for others. Would I wake up again?”

  “No.” Gabriel leans over, blocking my view of the ceiling. “This death will be different.”

  Why?

  “The process will destroy your body.”

  So I’ll never be alive again. I’ll never see Ally or Winston. I’ll never eat chocolate or potato chips or watch reruns of Dead Like Me.

  I adjust the pillow under my head and my mind starts to chew on the idea, broken up with grievances like god I wish I could wash the brains off of my hands. I see Kyra, Umbri, Gloria, Cindy, Ally and Lane—all of us at the table eating, laughing. I see Ally sliding a coffee into my hand and pushing a stray hair off of my face. She’s smiling at me. She’s laughing at my sarcasm.

  I see Lane offering me a helmet to his bike, helping me fasten it under my chin before he climbs on and waits for me to do the same.

  The life I built—this good life full of good people—gone.

  “I worked so hard for this life.” I worked so hard to get away from Eddie and my shitty childhood. “Now you want me to give it up?”

  “A human cannot live forever and you are human, Jesse.”

  I roll onto my side and curl into a tighter ball. The chain on my wrist bites deeper into my skin. I lift and lower my arm until I can figure out how to lay it just so without it squeezing my wrist bones.

  Springs in the mattress poke through the thin cot, causing pain in my side. Pain I understand. That people are mostly assholes, I understand. But the rest—?

  “Why twelve?” I’m not sure why I latch onto that question of all questions. “There could be twenty or a hundred partis. Everyone with NRD could have their own funky power, but there’s twelve. Why?”

  Gabriel sits on the bed. His suit brushes against my leg and surprises me. I reach out and touch his arm, finding it solid. The cot even groans under his weight. I slide my hand from his arm to his wings, and gasp. They’re real. It feels like I’m petting a bird, the feathers soft except for the small ridges bisecting the center. A scent of rain overtakes the room. I search his face, waiting for him to tell me to stop. After all, touching someone’s wings seems incredibly intimate. He says nothing, his green eyes wide and watching. His jaw is covered in flesh, pink enough that it could actually have blood and bone under there.

  I pull my hand away. “So why twelve?”

  “It is difficult to explain, given your limited comprehension of the universe.”

  I frown. “Try.”

  “Creation,” he begins. His gaze rolls up to the ceiling, and then falls to his hands clutching his knees. “Creation is also destruction, it is a force. It is an energy.”

  “Still with you.” I sit up on my elbows.

  “It is difficult to channel such force into an organism as limited as a human being. Each of you are born with a spark of it, the power that roots you eternally to the universe, but to make the universe anew, you must house more.”

  “The Big Bang?” I remember Caldwell’s words. “The creation slash destruction force goes through a person and boom?” I make an exploding motion with my hands. “Well what if I don’t want the universe to go boom?”

  “That is your choice.”

  “But that doesn’t explain the twelve partis or NRD.”

  Gabriel’s eyes fall to his hands again. “When something so large tries to move into such a small space, it must often be broken into pieces, to be reassembled on the other side.”

  Gabriel shows me a simplistic image. An orange, sliced several ways, is fed through a tiny hole that the whole orange couldn’t have fit through. “So I have a slice of the orange, two actually,” I tell him. “And there’s twelve slices of this orange.”

  “Yes.” He smiles, seemingly pleased that I’m not a total moron. “And the orange must be made whole again.”

  “So it can explode and juice the world.”

  He frowns.

  “You chose the orange metaphor, not me. But what about NRD? Why does it exist? Did you really choose me because I wanted to die?”

  He considers my face for another long moment. I feel an urge to squirm. His tie fades from black to green, tinged with red. He never has explained the reason for the mood tie. I could ask about it now, but I feel like it would distract him from the more important questions.

  At last, he speaks again. “Energy exchange is complex. In this case, like attracts like. You received a piece of the orange, because in a way, you are very much like the orange. Some humans desire only to live, to be part of creation. In others, the desire to live is as strong as the desire to destroy. The desire to create is equal to the desire to destroy. Both must be present.”

  His tie deepens to midnight blue.

  “Humans believe they have NRD because the brain, upon birth, gave them this condition. However, this is not true.”

  I sit up straighter. “Whoa, what? Say that again.”

  “Humans use science to justify the existence of NRD. They manipulate the facts to fit the theory. NRD occurs at death, not birth.”

  That would explain why researchers have yet to create a reliable test for NRD that would be administered at birth.

  “But we have blood types and magnetite and all the reasons for NRD. It’s science.”

  “It is your limited comprehension of a much larger force. You overlook several factors.”

  I collapse onto the cot, letting the circulation return to my hand. “Here you go, calling us stupid again. I’m not dumb. I understand what you’re saying.”

  He blinks at me.

  I throw up my hands. “There’s a giant orange and you like, cut it up and shoved the pieces through the tiny door known as Earth, and now you’re like trying to get the monkeys who got a slice to kill each other and put the orange back together again, but once we do, the orange is probably going to blow up in our faces. Right?”

  “Things must be allowed to die, so they may be born again. This planet is dying. Mankind is at the end of its era. All species have their time.”

  “And what does that make you guys—the angels? The compassionate hospice nurse?”

  His eyes darken. “We are the midwives of the new world.”

  Chapter 29

  Jesse

  I must’ve fallen asleep. I wake, disoriented by the sound of footfalls. For a moment, I think I’m back in Jeremiah’s compound, Tate Tower. Some drill is being run or some unit is being dispatched, and that’s the reason for all the chaos, all the running and screaming.

  But as I go to stand up, a sharp tug yanks at my wrist. The shackle. The unfamiliar room. The white tiles beneath my shoes, which is different from the soft gray carpet of my room back in Tate Tower.

  Caldwell still has me. And he must be close, because Gabriel is nowhere to be seen.

  The door swings inward and Caldwell steps into the room and closes the door after him.

  “Did you just walk in here?” I ask, baffled.

  “Sometimes I like to see what happens in-between.” He yanks at the bottom of his suit as if it has ridden up too high.

  An explosion rocks the church and plaster rains down from the ceiling.
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  “They never give up, do they?” he asks, with an air of agitation.

  “Who?”

  “Your friends,” he says.

  My heart leaps. But before I can fully appreciate the sentiment of their rescue mission, I realize that Ally is trying to save me. Again.

  If I survive this, I think, I’ll have to follow Ally everywhere. She can’t risk her life trying to save me if I never leave her side. Nikki will love that.

  “Why are you smiling?” Caldwell says. “I’m going to kill them.”

  My shield brightens, shimmering to life around me. It extends out far enough that it knocks Caldwell back, his tie askew.

  “Thanks for reminding me that you’re a fucking monster.” The shield glows brighter, and he steps back, connecting with the wall behind him.

  “I need to unlock your cuff. We’re leaving.”

  “My friends are coming,” I say. “They’ll unlock it. Or at the very least, they’ll saw this off, and I’ll have this cool retro bracelet. Very Château d'If.”

  “Do you understand what he wants you for?”

  An explosion rocks the building, and he cuts his eyes to the right. He turns his head as if he is actually following something, and then I remember he has Liza’s vision. He can see through anything. These walls and so called barriers are nothing for him.

  “I should’ve left you in The Needle.” His eyes widen at the invisible threat that is presumably closer than before. He takes a half step away from the door.

  “If I leave you here, he will use you, manipulate you far worse than I ever will.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Tate.”

  “Jeremiah?” A wave of confusion washes over me. Did Ally go back to him? No. That seems less likely than the fact that he simply tracked me himself and is trying to reacquire me. Reacquire. Ugh. I’ve heard him use that word in the past for people and objects that we were sent in to retrieve.