by Brian Rowe
Loud humming emanated from the shower, and it allowed me to speak even louder.
“What are we gonna do, Leese? Carry him to the car when he’s butt naked?”
“You have any better ideas?” she asked. “What if he catches us? He could kill us.”
“He seems harmless,” I said.
“He’s not harmless,” Liesel said. “He’s a murderer!”
The humming stopped. Liesel slapped her hands against her mouth, realizing she had just raised her voice.
When the showerhead turned off, I knew we were in big trouble.
“Hello?” the doctor asked from the shower. “Is someone there?”
Liesel and I stayed completely still, not saying a word, trying not to even breathe. But the water from the showerhead didn’t blast back on. It remained silent in the bathroom, like this guy would be barging into the bedroom any second.
I shook my head at Liesel. I was scared, and out of ideas.
Liesel bit down on her bottom lip and shrugged. But my eyes weren’t concentrating on Liesel. They were concentrating on the face of rage looking out toward us from the bathroom doorway.
Uh oh.
“Hey!” the man shouted. “Who are y—”
Liesel screamed, and I grabbed hold of her arms, as the doctor guy tripped on the edge of the rug and planted himself face first on the floor. I looked down to see his hairy back, and his hairier ass. He was totally naked.
“Cam, come on!” Liesel jumped over the man’s body, and I followed. But I didn’t escape into the hallway like Liesel did. As I leapt over the man, he grabbed for my jeans and pulled me down to the ground by digging his sharp fingernails into my leg.
“Owww!” I screamed.
“Stop!” the man shouted. “You’re not going anywhere!”
“Cam, do it now!” Liesel shouted, running down the hallway, into the exercise room, and back into the bedroom, behind the man. She grabbed his head from behind and yanked it back. “Do it! Hit him in the heart!”
I raised my palm into the air and aimed it straight for the man’s chest. But he was moving too fast, slapping Liesel in the face, trying to force her off of him. I closed my eyes and tried to think of Kimber, but the franticness of the moment kept interrupting my focus.
“Cameron, now—”
The doctor let me go, unexpectedly, making me fall forward and slam my head against the wall. I saw stars for a moment, and I turned around just in time to see Liesel running out of the bedroom and down the hall, the doctor chasing right after her.
“Let her go!” I shouted.
No time for a headache, Cam. Get the hell up and go save your wife.
I slapped my cheeks a few times—that seemed to break me from my daze—and I rushed down the hallway, then down a second hallway, until I found one of the mansion’s long, winding staircases. I looked down at the floor below to see Liesel running toward a large kitchen, the doctor following her.
“Get away from her!” I shouted. But again, neither of them heard me, the doctor keeping all of his focus on Liesel.
I knew there was no way I could think happy thoughts now. My rage had intensified, and my sanity meter was close to exploding. I didn’t know this Gus Rice, I didn’t know if he played a role in the death of Liesel’s mother, but I was sure about one thing: I really, really didn’t like him.
I started racing down the stairs, so fast that I almost tripped. I made it to the hardwood floor and rushed into the kitchen to see Liesel cowering in the corner, a tiny butter knife in her hand, while the doctor sported a large kitchen knife in his.
“Let her go,” I said again, softer this time.
“Make me,” he said, madness all over his face, suggesting he really did have a dark side like Hannah suggested.
“Cameron,” Liesel said, briefly averting her eyes from the doctor’s knife to me. “Cameron, please.”
I should’ve felt terror in that moment, but all I could feel from head to toe was an explosive fury. I stepped into the room and raised my right palm. I was going to try something new.
“I said, get away from her!”
“Cam!” Liesel shouted. “He’s gonna stab me!”
The man leapt toward Liesel, the knife going straight for her abdomen. But before he could take a swipe at her, a wave of energy erupted from my head down to my chest, out to my arm, and then to my palm. It was so strong I thought my heart was going to explode. The light that erupted from my palm wasn’t light green this time; it was a harsh dark green that lit up the whole room with an ominous glow. When the light shot out from my palm, striking the doctor on the side of his face, I wasn’t able to see much. The force of the power was so strong it blew me back, out of the kitchen, all the way into the gigantic foyer.
“Owww!” I shouted again.
I couldn’t move my arms for a moment, but when I finally felt strong enough to sit up and look into the kitchen. I was happy to see no sign of the doctor, or the knives.
Instead I saw Liesel, out of breath, walking toward me and kneeling down.
“Did I get him?” I asked.
She smiled and sighed, wiping some sweat from her cheeks and forehead and giving me an enthusiastic hug. “You got him, Cam. Oh my God. You saved me. He was going to—”
“I know,” I said. “I didn’t… you know…”
“What?”
“I didn’t kill him, did I?”
She shook her head. “No. I checked his pulse. He’s alive. You struck him in the head. He’ll be out for hours.”
“That’s good to hear.” I tugged hard on Liesel’s arm and brought her closer. I wanted to feel her touch. I wanted to make sure she was still with me. “So what do we do now?”
She took a deep breath. “We drag him to the back of your car, and hope to God nobody sees us.”
I nodded. “And hope to God he doesn’t wake up.”
RYAN
He couldn’t stop honking. Even though he knew it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. The cars weren’t budging. And as the minutes ticked on, Ryan Henderson realized getting out of New York was going to be a bigger problem than he realized.
“Dude, what the hell is going on here?” Ryan’s friend Wallace asked in the back seat. “We haven’t moved in fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen? Try thirty.” Matt, Ryan’s other friend in the car, as well as roommate, massaged his hands together nervously in the passenger seat. Ryan had only known Wallace since taking a sociology class with him at Columbia University last January. Ryan had known Matt his whole life; they went to elementary school, middle school, and high school together, and played on the Caughlin Ranch High basketball team all four years. “If we don’t move soon, we might have to make a run for it.”
“Make a run for it?” Ryan asked, annoyed. “This isn’t a science fiction movie, guys. Aliens aren’t hovering over the city ready to nuke us to death. This is just a case of people going completely mad because of a little aging problem.”
“Little?” little Wallace said in the back seat. “This last week was scary, no doubt. Now it’s just gone insane. I feel like I’m aging every five minutes. Look at me. I’m already getting bags under my eyes!”
“I think I look better now,” Ryan said, not trying to cover up his conceitedness. “I always thought I would look better in my thirties. Now I know.”
“You’re not gonna be in your thirties for long,” Wallace said. “Just give this traffic another few hours. You’ll be forty any moment.”
Matt looked at Ryan with intense fear. He and Ryan knew about Cameron’s aging diseases, the one that happened last year, and the one that happened in April. But Cameron had survived both traumatic experiences, and so Ryan felt strongly that this worldwide aging epidemic would eventually blow over.
“I know you think this will just go away, Ryan,” Matt said, looking like he wanted to crawl under a rock and die. “But I’m starting to think it won’t.”
“Cameron made it through. Twice. Whatever this is�
� it doesn’t kill anyone. It just freaks everyone the hell out.”
“But what about all the old people?” Wallace asked. “A week ago I had three of my four grandparents still alive. They’re all dead now, Ryan! They’re dead!”
“A coincidence, maybe?”
“A total moron, maybe?”
Matt shook his head. “Well, whatever’s happening, guys, we need to get the hell out of New York. Everyone’s panicking, and it’s not gonna get any better.” Matt turned and looked out the window. “I mean, look at that guy.”
The three nineteen-year-olds, now in their thirties, watched as an old bearded man ran past them screaming at the top of his lungs. When he reached the intersection up ahead, he dropped the suitcase he was carrying and stopped.
“What’s he doing?” Wallace asked.
And then the three screamed, Wallace the loudest, when they saw the man get struck to the ground by a speeding bus.
“It’s the end of the world,” Wallace said.
“It’s not the end of the world!” Ryan shouted. “But we need to get to a safe place! We can’t stay here any longer!”
Ryan, Matt, and Wallace stepped out of the car, opened the trunk, and grabbed their belongings.
“Where are we going?” Wallace asked.
Ryan licked his lips. “Where else? The subway.”
“OK,” Matt and Wallace said in unison.
The three friends started running against traffic, trying to ignore all the screams and honking and spreading of total panic. People were reaching out for help, but the boys just kept running on past, for a whole two blocks. Matt fell, once, striking his cheek against the rocky street pavement. He started bleeding, but he kept on running.
They finally found the stairwell to Penn Station, on the corner of 8th and West 34th Street. Matt and Wallace started racing down the stairs, while Ryan stopped for a moment to admire the Empire State Building in the distance. Ryan had toured this great city a year and half ago and decided, after being accepted to nearly a dozen colleges all over the United States, that he wanted to live in New York for four years and attend the prestigious Columbia University. But as much as Ryan loved the city, and he certainly did, he knew this was not the place to be in a time of worldwide chaos. He tried to stay positive, but inside, he was scared. He wanted to be back in Reno, back in the arms of his mom and dad. He had wanted independence all his life, but now, in this turbulent time, he just wanted to be back home.
He also wanted to give Cameron Martin a call. “What do you think about all this, Cameron?” he asked aloud, just as the voice of Matt shook him back to reality.
“Ryan! Come on!”
“I’m coming!” Ryan glanced back at the Empire State Building one last time, and then started racing down the steps toward Penn Station.
“It’s crowded,” Wallace said, up ahead of Mike and Ryan. “We’re going to have to push our way through.”
“We have to take the subway to the end of the line,” Ryan said. “We have to take it as far as it will go.”
“OK,” Matt said, running out in front of Wallace. “Come on! Hurry!”
They started wading through the hordes of people, all looking to get the next subway ride, all knowing it was going to be awhile if they didn’t act like jackasses and just start pushing. The boys weren’t about to hold hands, so they were soon dispersed so far away from each other that Ryan couldn’t even see Matt or Wallace anymore. He just hoped he could find his way to the edge of the platform so that he could get a ride on the next train.
“Watch where you’re going!” a large black man shouted.
“Hey, get back in line!” a petite but vocal old lady screamed.
“Sorry,” Ryan kept saying. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m trying to find my family.” He figured that lie would’ve worked better when he was six or seven. Now looking like he was in his thirties, he assumed there wouldn’t be the same kind of sympathy.
He could finally see the edge of the platform in the distance as a subway car arrived and people started pushing and shoving their way onto the platform. It was complete anarchy, and Ryan had to try to block out the intense screaming. It got so bad that he started to wonder if staying above ground might have been the smarter decision. But there was no turning back now. He had to get on the next train.
“Matt? Wallace?”
“Over here!” Matt shouted.
Ryan looked over to see Matt and Wallace on the right edge of the platform, trying to fight their way inside.
But they were too late. As Ryan approached it, the huge doors promptly closed, and the subway car zoomed off, leaving the boys surrounded by ferocious humans, all with one desire: to get the hell out of New York.
Ryan got closer and closer. He could see the edge. He knew the closer he got, the easier it would be to secure a place on the next subway car. He squatted down and tried to move past others, acting as if he was a little person, or as if he had de-aged a few decades.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Excuse me. Pardon me. Sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He could see the edge. Only two people were in front of him now. He turned around to see three hundred people, at least, shoving against one another as if this was the mosh-pit of a sold-out concert.
Ryan looked to his right to see Wallace and Matt standing next to each other, a little bit farther back, but still close to the edge. He smiled to himself, knowing in just a few seconds he would be safely on the next subway car.
“Plllllllease,” he whispered to himself, briefly closing his eyes. “Please just get me out of here safely, for the love of—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the loud clangs of the oncoming subway car echoed down the track, exciting Ryan and everybody around him. As it drew nearer, he could feel the pushing behind him becoming increasingly violent.
“Stop pushing!” somebody shouted.
“You’re going to hurt someone!” another person shouted.
All the pushing made its way to Ryan, and he had to steady myself.
But then the unthinkable happened. Ryan felt a shove from his right, and he slammed into a person on his left. Then that person shoved him away, and then somebody else pushed him, and he was suddenly a living, breathing pinball machine.
When a large, bearded man slammed into his back, he fell down onto the subway tracks, the panic rushing over him instantly.
“Oh my God, Ryan!” Matt shouted from the platform. He turned around. “Somebody help him!”
Something was broken; Ryan couldn’t tell what. It was his shoulder or arm or wrist. He felt shooting pain running throughout the top half of his body. But as he looked up to see the blinding light of the subway car coming toward him, he knew all the pain would be obliterated in an instant if he didn’t do something.
“Ryan!” Wallace shouted. “Get the hell out of there!”
“Ryan! Grab my hand!” Matt made his way to the edge of the platform and reached down as far as he could. He was super tall—almost six-five—and he had the longest, lankiest arms of all time. But as much as Ryan tried to jump up to his feet, his body wouldn’t let him. It was like he was momentarily frozen to his spot in the center of the subway track.
“Ryan! Jump!”
The subway car raced toward Ryan, full throttle, no chance of stopping. He turned to Matt and nodded, knowing he had one second to save himself.
“OK,” Ryan said as he leapt forward and successfully grabbed Matt’s hands.
Matt pulled him up and over the edge of the platform, just as the subway car came racing past. It was so close a call that Ryan’s feet were almost severed, his right shoe getting blown off in the process.
Matt and Ryan both fell to the ground, and Ryan looked up at the Penn Station ceiling, realizing he had escaped death by a mere second.
“Oh my God,” Ryan said.
“Oh my God,” Matt repeated. “That was… you almost…”
“I know. How can I ever thank—”
The subway doo
rs opened up, and hundreds of people rushed inside, in the process trampling over Ryan and Matt. Matt tried to get up, unsuccessfully, while Ryan died when the bottom of a high heel struck the side of his head.
When the subway car pulled away, Wallace had a warm seat all to himself. He didn’t know what had happened to Ryan and Matt, and he didn’t care.
It was each man for himself now.
12.
I looked in the back seat, feeling more paranoid than ever. I could’ve sworn I saw a twitch.
“You did not see a twitch,” Liesel reassured me. “We’ve been out of Santa Barbara for two seconds and you already think your spell’s wearing off. Trust me. It hasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“He’ll be out for a while, Cam. Trust me. At least the rest of the day, if not longer.”
“I can feel him breathing on me,” I said, trying to forget the man’s face was turned away from me.
“No you can’t.”
“This is so insane what we did. Do you realize that?”
“If it’s a way we can save humanity, then I don’t see anything insane about it.”
“I mean I don’t even know this guy. He could be innocent.”
Liesel put her feet up on the dash and looked out her window. “Cam, I can’t vouch or not vouch for this guy. I wasn’t there. I met him once, in the beginning, before I… you know.”
“Before you left?”
“Yeah. He seemed all right. Could he be responsible for my mother’s death? Possibly. But why Hannah thinks he is solely responsible is beyond me.”
“Leese, she’s letting out her anger by destroying the world. I don’t think she has a lot of reasonable thinking going on.”
“Still though,” Liesel said, “it seems odd she would care enough about this man to make us kidnap him.” She shrugged and sighed. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we get this guy to Hannah, wherever the hell she is.”
“Yeah, what’s the plan with that, by the way? Am I just gonna keep driving north?”
“For now, yeah. Head toward Sacramento. I have a feeling she’s gonna be up there.”