Emily released the breath she had been holding. The second the lights had failed her fear of the dark had immediately pounced. It was amazing, she thought, how light fed humans’ bravery. Without it, we were all just cavemen cowering in the blackness.
“You okay?” Emily asked.
Rhiannon nodded, the momentary panic already gone as she quickly collected herself. “Why did the lights go out?”
Emily had been pondering why there was power since they had first discovered the building to be empty of any human life. The light’s sudden demise so close to sunset more or less confirmed the conclusion she had come to. “I think this place has some kind of solar-panel system, or maybe even a wind turbine that powers it. I think if we scout around we will probably find a battery bank in here somewhere.”
“So why did the lights go out?” Rhiannon asked again.
“How should I know?” Then, regretting the edge of sharpness in her voice, added, “Maybe there’s a problem with the batteries or with the solar panels. Maybe there just wasn’t enough sun for the past couple of days. Who knows? It looks like whoever worked here left in a hurry and didn’t bother turning off the lights, and this place has been empty for two years or so now. And we’ve turned on a lot of lights, which probably drained the power even faster. It’s a miracle it’s still functioning at all. Come on, that tire isn’t going to change itself.”
Half an hour, several scraped knuckles, and more than a few harsh words later Emily released the jack and allowed the truck to sink down onto its newly changed tire. The lights had still not come back on, and Emily figured they had seen the last of them, at least for tonight.
“Not bad if I do say so myself,” she said, moving Rhiannon’s hand until the flashlight illuminated the wheel well so she could tighten the wheel nuts.
“Can we go now?” said Rhiannon, eager to be on her way.
Emily was tempted to leave right then and there too. Now that her mind was free of distraction, the constant pull Adam exerted on her was almost irresistible, but it would not be fair or safe to travel the freeway after dark. She was just going to have to deal with it for tonight.
“It’s almost dark out there now. Too dangerous. We’ll plan on an early start tomorrow, so it’s best we get an early night too,” Emily told Rhiannon. She contemplated spending the night in the cab of the truck, but it was pointless sleeping in such cramped quarters when there was a perfectly good sofa in the waiting area. They grabbed Rhiannon’s backpack and headed back there.
“I’m going to check the doors,” she told Rhiannon and retraced her steps back to the rear entrance of the building. She turned the thumb lock to the closed position, then recovered her boots and socks from the office. The mud had dried to a solid cake on her boots. She banged them against the side of the desk until the majority fell off, picked off the few stubborn pieces that remained, then walked back to their makeshift bedroom.
Rhiannon had already unpacked her sleeping bag.
“You take the sofa, and I’ll take the chair,” Emily offered.
“Thanks,” said Rhiannon. She smiled, handed Emily the blanket from her backpack, yawned, then picked up her sleeping bag and moved over to the sofa.
Emily checked the two doors to the room. Neither of them had any kind of lock, so she took two of the high-backed chairs from under the table and jammed one under each of the door handles. That left them only exposed via the two windows that looked out toward the freeway, but there was little that could be done about that.
The setting sun was at the opposite end of the building, pushing long shadows across the ground as she looked out across the open space toward the freeway. It wouldn’t be long before night edged out the gray evening, but there was just enough light left for Emily to be able to see that the clouds that had dogged them for the past few days had begun to thin, and the faintest hint of light-blue sky was now visible. Maybe tomorrow would be a better day, although the weather didn’t really matter anymore, now that they had a vehicle. It was going to make the trip so much easier. To the north Emily saw a distant gleaming on the horizon, a scintillating glimmer like light reflecting on glass. Maybe another building catching the final dying rays of the sun.
She was suddenly aware of just how tired she was. And how cold her feet were too. The previous residents of this place had apparently left the heating on, but as soon as the power died the air had gradually begun to chill. She took off her jacket and then stripped out of her clothes, laying them over the table to dry. She changed into a clean pair of jeans and a sweater. By the time she slipped under the blanket, the windows were almost black with night, and the only sound was of Rhiannon’s and Thor’s sleep-soothed breathing.
“Good night, Adam,” she whispered as her eyes closed. “Your mommy is coming for you.”
She was a million different souls rushing through the night. And yet, even as she was all, she was still one. The I/They flowed together, a mathematical wave of such purity that, if the I had still possessed its individual personality, it would have been reduced to an emotional pool in the presence of such coordinated perfection and beauty. The constant ebb and surge moved over the ground like a living tsunami, a luminescent tide swelling inland looking for a shore to break over.
Through tens of millions of eyes, I/They observed the landscape moving before them, disappearing beneath the rolling wave of life as it moved through the darkness, driven by an insatiable hunger shared equally by each member of the great swarm.
I/They felt the need glowing within her, the hunger that roared within each of them. The Need was a song, and each of them contributed their voice, urging the others onward, drawing power from the others’ emptiness.
A pinprick of light appeared to the west, distant and tiny to any human eye, but to the I/They’s multitude of senses it was a flash so bright and so intense it could mean only one thing . . .
Sustenance!
As one, the wave swelled toward the light, still distant, but irresistibly drawing them in. Even if the mass of tiny collective minds had wanted to ignore the call, it would have been impossible, the Need was so very, very strong.
I/They felt a vibration akin to excitement shudder through the swarm, and with it came a sudden acceleration, both a push and a tug at the same time, toward the light source, urging each other onward, faster, and faster, and . . .
The world turned a blinding orange for a split second, disorienting the human portion of the I/They mind, but the They swept onward, unaffected by the confusion of the I.
A noise that the I recognized as being a word but was unable to process brushed against her, then the orange light was back once more, flooding her vision. More words, loudly spoken, pattered against her psyche like stones thrown against a window.
And like that pane of glass the connection suddenly shattered into . . .
“Emily! Emily, wake up.” The sting of a slap across her cheek and a dazzling explosion of light dragged Emily panting and heaving back to consciousness. Her vision swam, her eyes blinded by light that filled her entire head. It took Emily several heartbeats before she realized that the light was coming from Rhiannon’s flashlight.
“Get that out of my face,” she gasped, the words stumbling from between her dry lips.
Rhiannon complied, dropping the beam of the flashlight to the floor and giving Emily a glimpse of the girl’s pale and frightened face in its glow. Rhiannon knelt on the floor. Thor sat next to her. He gave a low whine, raised a paw toward Emily, and then dropped to the carpet, his nose inches from Emily’s.
Carpet? Hadn’t she been asleep in the armchair?
Emily closed her eyes. Projected onto the black screen of her eyelids she saw the image of the darkened plain from her dream, felt the wavelike surge of bodies heading toward something . . . a distant light. The food?
What the hell is going on here? As her senses returned Emily realized she was lying on the floor next to the coffee table. Her blanket, looking uncomfortably like the shed pupae o
f one of the spider aliens, lay on the floor at the foot of the chair. She sat up and immediately regretted the decision. Her head throbbed and her vision blurred again. Raising a hand to her forehead, she felt a stickiness there just above her hairline, and the tips of her fingers came back coated with drying blood. What the hell had she done now?
“You were yelling and thrashing in your sleep,” Rhiannon said. “Then you tried to get up and you tripped over your blanket and hit your head and started to bleed, and I didn’t know what to do, because I tried to wake you, but you just kept yelling and thrashing and then . . . and then . . .” Her words gushed out without a pause.
“Breathe!” Emily demanded, reaching out a hand to calm the frantic girl and also to steady herself, her senses still woozy. Emily put her hand to her head again; the cut was just above her hairline. It stung as she probed it with her fingers. Not that bad, though; the gash was about an inch long, the blood congealing already. “Just tell me what else happened.”
Rhiannon paused and took in a deep lungful of air. “You kept mumbling and swaying, like you were drunk. You wouldn’t wake up. I turned on the flashlight, and you were lying there bleeding and you wouldn’t shut up. I tried to wake you, Emily. I didn’t mean to hit you but that was the only thing I could think of.”
“You hit me?”
“You were mumbling something over and over again. I’m sorry, I had to slap you.” Rhiannon was distraught.
“What was I saying?” Emily asked, wetting her chapped lips with the tip of her tongue.
Rhiannon paused, as if she was afraid to let the words out.
“It’s okay,” Emily said, trying to not let her agitation make it to her voice. “I’m not angry. You did the right thing. Just tell me what I said.”
“Hungry!” Rhiannon blurted out. “You kept yelling ‘Hungry’ over and over.”
Well, that made no sense. Hungry? Why would she be yelling that?
Her mind flashed back to the dream, and the deep insatiable hunger of all those minds. And the light, the distant light on a darkened plain.
“Oh no! Rhiannon, get your gear together, we need to leave now.” Emily scrambled to her feet, felt the world sway for a second, ignored it, and virtually leaped to where she had dropped her blanket.
Rhiannon looked confused. “What? Why? What do you mean?”
“We don’t have time for me to explain anything, just grab your stuff. We need to get to the truck and get out of here. Right now!” Emily pushed the blanket unceremoniously into her suitcase and dropped it at the door.
The keys to the truck, where had she left them? Her head was still woozy as she fought to focus. On the table, right there. She pocketed the keys and turned to check on Rhiannon, who was slowly packing her sleeping bag into the backpack.
“Why do we have to leave?” she asked, confused.
“Because . . .” Emily thought about it for a second. Why did they have to run? Because she knew that these dreams were not really dreams. Because each one was becoming more and more intense, more real, almost prescient. Because lately she felt more real when she was dreaming than she did when she was awake. Because she knew that, somehow, some kind of connection had been established between her and the life-forms that now dominated this planet. Because she recognized the building she had seen in the dream. This building. Because . . .
“. . . something is coming,” she said.
“What do you mean something’s coming?” Rhiannon said as they hustled down the corridor to the vehicle bay. Her voice was a high-pitched squeak at this point. “What’s coming? Emily, please.”
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Emily said, exasperation, fear, and pain making her own voice shriller than she intended. She tried to ignore the sharp throbbing spasm in her head that came with every footfall as she jogged alongside the girl and the dog. “My dreams, they . . . I think they show me things. Like how I knew Adam was still alive. And if I’m right, then that last dream means we’re in terrible danger.”
“Danger from what?” Rhiannon insisted, pushing open the door to the vehicle bay, her flashlight illuminating the way.
“I don’t know that either. Whatever it is, there are a lot of them, and I think they’re heading this way.” Emily realized she didn’t even know what time it was. She glanced at the windows that ran along the top of the vehicle bay doors. She had gone to sleep just after nightfall, but now she could see a growing radiance through the dirt-stained windows, so it must be close to dawn at least. God, she felt like she had only just fallen asleep.
They negotiated their way around the other vehicles and headed to the truck. Pulling open the rear door, Emily threw in the suitcase and Rhiannon’s backpack. “Thor. Up,” she commanded, slapping the floor of the truck with her hand. The malamute leaped joyfully into the back of the truck, his tail wagging furiously, tongue lolling. Despite everything, Emily had to smile. The damn dog always was a sucker for a road trip, she thought as she slammed the door behind him and made her way to the front of the truck. Rhiannon was already inside. Emily grabbed the battery starter from the driver’s seat, ran quickly to the front, and attached it to the battery on her second attempt, cursing her shaking hands. She wedged the starter down between the battery casing and the side panel, then slammed the hood shut again. There wasn’t going to be time for her to get back out again and retrieve the starter once the engine was running.
Rhiannon was already inside as Emily climbed back into the driver’s seat.
“Fasten your seat belt,” Emily ordered and was immediately overcome with a sense of déjà vu. Sitting in a similar vehicle, in a garage, two kids in the car that time, though. Their father outside, trying to lure them to him and the thing that had taken control of him.
Emily forced the memory from her mind. Pushing the key into the ignition, she held her breath a moment, then turned it. The engine instantly roared to life. She gave it a second, then turned on the main beams and looked up at the bay door windows. Morning was fast approaching; she could see its illumination now through the glass, pushing back the shadows on the ceiling. Thank God.
“Shit! The door. I need to open the door.” The door could be manually operated by a chain-and-pulley system that was clearly visible on the wall between their bay and the next one over. Emily began to unbuckle her seat belt.
“No, I’ll get it,” said Rhiannon, eager to help. She was out of the door and running to the pulley before Emily could even say no.
Sprinting to the door, Rhiannon took the chain in both hands and started to pull it hand over hand. The door rose with each smooth tug from Rhiannon. Light filtered in through the growing gap between the concrete floor and the bottom of the door.
Emily’s fingers thrummed impatiently against the steering wheel. Come on! Come on!
As the gap between door and floor grew, more light began to flood inside and, unless by some miracle every cloud had disappeared from the sky, the amount of light that was now spilling across the service bay floor was just too bright.
“What the . . . ?” Emily muttered. The bay door was halfway up, and if she tilted her head she could get a good view of . . . Oh! Shit!
A wave of white light, shimmering like liquid metal, filled the entire width of the gap left by the roll-up door. It dipped and rose again, flowing silently toward them.
Emily recognized it instantly from her dream. In the dream she had been one of them, linked somehow via this weird and growing interconnection that had been established when Adam was kidnapped. A residue of that connection must still have existed, because as the wave of light moved inexorably toward their position, growing larger with each passing second, she felt a thrill pass through her, and she was the hunter again for just a moment. She knew what they wanted, and in that instant, she was almost willing to give it to them.
Thor started to bark frantically from behind her, shocking Emily from her trance and severing the connection. She shook her head as though that would dispel the filaments of disorient
ation she still felt floating within her mind.
Focus, Goddamn it.
Rhiannon’s back was to the truck, and the pulley system was set back against the interior wall; Rhiannon would not be able to see the approaching danger until it was too late. Emily flashed the truck’s headlights and hit the horn hard.
As soon as she had done it, she knew it had been the wrong thing to do. A ripple, slightly brighter than the main white light, passed through the onrushing wave, and Emily thought she saw the wave accelerate, shifting ever so slightly toward the bay where she, Rhiannon, and Thor waited like trapped rabbits.
It was a split-second decision, but in her mind the thought process seemed to stretch on for an eternity: Should she just chance it, bundle Rhiannon into the truck, and make a run for it and hope that she could outrun the wave? She calculated the risks and probabilities—beyond the beautiful shimmering light was nothing but the darkness; the wave was moving with lightning speed; her ability to avoid any obstacles in the road—and came to the conclusion that there was no way they would make it. The light wave was moving far too fast for her to be able to guarantee she could safely navigate them out from this place.
So that left only one option.
Rhiannon had stopped pulling the chain, the door raised to her chest height, and was now looking back at the truck, the quizzical look on her face silently asking Emily, What?
Emily threw open the truck door and rushed to Rhiannon’s side.
A hum, like a high-tension power line throbbing with energy, was beginning to fill the air ahead of the wave, barely audible over the deep rumble of the truck’s engine but growing louder with every second.
“What are you doing?” said Rhiannon. Emily ignored her, snatched the chain from her hands, and shouldered the girl aside. As quickly as she could she pulled on the chain and the door began to gradually drop back toward the floor. As the crack between door and floor became smaller so the intensity of both the sizzling sound and the luminosity increased, until the inside of the vehicle bay sounded like fat sizzling on a red-hot skillet, and the shadows had all been forced to the room’s corners.
Extinction Point (Book 4): Genesis Page 18