Heather looked down, startled. "Whoa! Where did you come from?"
Just as it had appeared from nowhere, the dog faded from view. Heather cocked her head, looking at the area where the dog had appeared. She felt convinced it was still there somehow. She knelt next to the place where it had stood and reached out her hand, her fingers touching the air where his nose was.
Her transformation was immediate. Heather's body melted away, becoming a ghostlike shape. In front of her stood the dog, or a strange shade of a dog.
"Well, hello there," she said.
The German shepherd lolled his tongue out and licked her face.
"I'm trying to find the lab this scientist sent me to, but I think it was a trick," she said.
The dog growled in response, seeming to recognize the person about whom she was speaking.
"You know him, huh?" she asked.
He yipped.
"I left Simon with him," Heather said. "I'm worried he might have done something to Simon. I need to find him." Her head filled with a strange buzzing sensation. When it hit her, Heather stood bolt upright. "Oh! Wow. What's that?" The buzzing concentrated in a certain area of her head, forcing her to turn until she was facing the wall to their right. The buzz centered there, and a sensation that what she was looking for was in that direction suffused her being. "I think...I think he's this way." She ran through the wall.
______________________
Wind howled around the rooftop, forcing Heather to squint her eyes nearly closed. Something was happening. Sparks began to leap from one of them to the next.
"What's going on?" Heather shrieked. A massive spark burst from Simon's shoulder to hers, knocking them apart.
Lines of energy arced between them now, and then arced into the air above the rooftop. And where they came together, the sky darkened. A shimmering hole began to form in the air. A sound rose, like the sound of cracks opening in ice, only a million times louder.
______________________
"Hello. I'm Sarah." The woman extended a hand. "McDonnell," she added.
At the sound of her mother's voice, Heather sat straight up on the couch and peered around the corner. She hoped against hope that her mother hadn't shown up half drunk. She couldn't stand to be embarrassed like that in front of her friend Katie and her mom.
Katie's mom shook Sarah's hand. "Hi, nice to meet you. Come on in."
"Thank you." Heather's mother stepped into the hallway. She looked sober enough, Heather supposed. No stumbling or slurred words. She was actually presentable, for a change, with her straight, light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail.
"Hey mom," Heather said.
"Hey, baby," Sarah replied. "Ready to go?"
"Hi, Mrs. McDonnell," said Katie. Heather's friend was a pretty girl with blonde curls.
"Katie." Heather knew that her mom hated it when people called her "Mrs.", but she didn't bother to correct Katie.
"We're just watching New Reflection on TV," Katie said. The sound of the hot new boy band could be heard in the background.
Sarah nodded. "Of course."
Katie's mother chuckled. "They're really excited about the concert. It's all they talk about."
"I know. Heather, let's go, honey."
"Can we watch the end of this?" Heather asked.
"No, let's go, come on."
Heather sighed and stood.
Katie ran to her mother. "Mom, can I go over to Heather's house tonight?"
"No, I told you we have plans."
"What plans?"
"We have that reunion to go to."
"I don't want to go to THAT."
Katie's mother looked uncomfortable. "Katie..."
"NO...mom...I don't want to GO to that."
"Katie!"
"NO, mom, I don't WANT to, I don't WANT to GO!"
Sarah put her arm on Heather's shoulder and moved her toward the door. "Well, it was nice meeting you," she said.
Heather walked out the door and her mother closed it behind them. They could hear Katie screaming at her mother inside.
"Wow," Sarah said. Heather opened her car door and got inside. Sarah got in on the driver's side. "Please don't ever become like that."
"Like we've never screamed at each other," Heather said.
Her mother had placed the keys in the ignition, and paused at that. Then she turned the keys and started the car.
"I'm going to meetings again," her mother said. "Just so you know."
"Okay," Heather said. That'll last a week, if I'm lucky, she thought.
"I mean it this time," Sarah said.
Heather nodded, but said nothing.
"I mean it."
Heather put her earbuds in and turned on her iPod. The tones of New Reflection's latest hit filled her head.
______________________
Heather's body passed effortlessly through walls and corridors and she was soon out the other side of the base and heading into the city. The buzzing sensation pulled her westward, across town. She tried to remember what might be in that direction; it seemed to be toward the arts district. The museum? The zoo?
Why would Simon have left the base? What happened?
Heather stopped short as a sudden explosion rocked the street. Car alarms sounded, and a column of smoke rose from the opposite side of the building in front of her. She ran forward, passing through the building. People inside were panicking, hitting the floor and covering their heads with their hands. Heather's feet went through them as she ran. She emerged on the street and saw the opposite building had been torn apart by something. It looked like a bomb had gone off in one of the shops on the bottom floor. Glass had been shattered, wood torn away, and stone blackened. Upper floors sagged down at the corner. There were screams on the wind.
"What happened here?" Heather asked, though she spoke to no one in particular and no one could hear her in any event.
"WHERE IS SHE?" a female voice screamed.
Heather turned to see a girl in the middle of the street, a short girl with curly blonde hair. She did a double take. Katie??
Katie rubbed her hands against the hips of her dirty blue jeans. "It's not FAIR. She said she would BE HERE."
"Katie?" Heather called, approaching her.
Katie didn't react to her at all. She can't see me, Heather realized. She looked down at her hands, pale as mist. She shook them and concentrated, and her natural form returned, spreading out from her hands.
The buzzing in her head immediately stopped.
"Katie?"
The blonde girl spun around. "HEATHER? What are YOU doing here?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing? What happened?" She indicated the destroyed building.
Katie grasped her blonde curls, looking ready to tear them out. "The red lady SAID she would BE here. SHE PROMISED!"
"What lady?"
Katie threw her hands down and looked up at the sky. "UGHH. The one on the BUS."
Heather's brow furrowed. "The...you mean the school bus? The one that crashed? But you weren't on that bus..."
Two patrol cars screamed around the corner and came to a stop in front of them.
"Oh jeez," Heather said. "Look, stay back, I'll handle th-"
Katie let out a howl of rage. Her body twitched this way and that, and it appeared that her front half tore free of the back, each half becoming a perfect duplicate of the girl she had been. Before Heather could blink, the duplicate in front charged forward, her body beginning to glow.
The duplicate Katie struck the grill of the first patrol car and her body exploded, throwing Heather to the ground. The front of the car was obliterated, and the remains of both cars were hurled backwards onto the opposite sidewalk.
"WHERE IS SHE?" Katie screamed.
______________________
Through the opening in the sky, Heather saw nothing at all. Then she realized, to her horror, that the nothing was spreading. Soon, all around her had vanished, and all around her...was nothing.
&nbs
p; Heather felt a strange sensation, as if she was melting, dissolving away into the air. She looked at her hands, and they seemed to ripple and twist in front of her eyes.
Heather's vision swam. Her feet melted into the rooftop. Her skin seeped into her clothes. Her hair whispered away into the wind. Her mind saw only the nothing all around her, and she knew she was losing herself.
Soon she would be nothing at all.
______________________
Over the next two weeks, as the much-anticipated concert approached, Sarah observed a sea change in Heather and her surroundings. First, the tickets earned a place of honor, ensconced in the frame of Heather's mirror. A photo of one of the members of New Reflection soon joined it. "What's this one's name?" Sarah had asked. "Justin? Jordan?" "MOM, don't be dumb! That's JENNER!" Another photo soon joined it, then another, then another; eventually they ringed her own reflection, as if giving their approval to whatever Heather saw there.
The first poster graced her wall shortly thereafter, and after that it was as if the floodgates had opened. Posters spread in all directions, covering every inch of wall. New Reflection shirts packed Heather's closet. New Reflection dolls guarded Heather from her nightstand and vanity while she slept. The band members' names crawled across every book Heather owned, every notepad, every sheet of paper, sometimes joined with "+ HEATHER" in large flowing letters.
Her room wasn't the only thing to change. Heather wanted to curl her hair like Katie's, spend more time with Katie, dress like Katie. She talked on the phone all night with Katie about all the shows she watched, just like Katie. Heather even began, gradually, to talk like Katie.
Sarah attended her meetings. Every night she passed the bar on the way home, and tried not to stop and order a scotch.
______________________
Police now converged from all directions. Helicopters swarmed the sky above. Sirens filled the air, and a growing wind howled toward the center of town. Katie kept creating duplicates of herself, then plunging those duplicates into patrol cars, S.W.A.T. vans, everything around them. The duplicates exploded with deadly force every time. Heather had been unable to convince Katie to stop. Katie crept closer to the center of town, dragging the carnage, and Heather, along with her.
"Katie, stop!" she called. "I need to find Simon, he was back the other way!"
Katie didn't even look back. "I can't STOP. She said she would BE HERE. She said we would get EVERYTHING we ever WANTED."
Heather looked back, but there were police vehicles and barricades up back there now, and besides, the buzzing that gave her a sense of where to find Simon had gone, vanished when she let go of the dog's ghostly form. She had no idea where the dog was now, if he had followed her at all she was unable to locate him.
A piercing wail suddenly filled the air. Heather clapped her hands over her ears. The wail was accompanied by a wind that chilled her to the bone despite her metal form.
"That's IT!" Katie said. "That's the SIGNAL, come ON!"
A look forward gave her an idea of Katie's destination: one building near the center of town stood a bit higher than the others. A dark cloud had formed over it, and the wind seemed to be howling around it, forming a strange, localized cyclone. The helicopters couldn't get anywhere near it.
Heather's body had turned to metal when the first bullet struck her, but when she spotted the construction vehicle, she reached out to touch it. Her body transformed immediately, her arms lengthening and thickening, growing massive clawlike scoops. The vehicle had used these to dig and move earth, but Heather swept them in front of Katie's path, knocking patrol cars out of the way. If she couldn't stop Katie, she could at least try to minimize the destruction.
______________________
Heather couldn't move anymore. She was the rooftop. She was the wind. She was the sparks in the air. She was wasting away, vanishing.
"Simon," she called through a throat that wasn't there anymore, "It's happening again. It's happening againnnn!"
At the center of the aperture in the sky, a light formed, this one blood red.
A figure stepped forth.
The strange figure stepped down as if walking down a flight of stairs, only there were no stairs. Its legs moved gracefully downward until it stood on the roof.
______________________
Heather was checking her hair when she realized the tickets were no longer tucked into the corner of the mirror.
"Where are the tickets?" she asked her reflection. Her eyes scanned the dresser. She opened the vanity drawers. She looked over the bed. She checked the night stand. They were nowhere to be found.
"Mom!" she called. "Have you seen my concert tickets?"
She began to be a bit frantic. She looked under the bed, in the night stand drawer, in her dresser, in her closet.
"They're gone," her mother said from the doorway.
"What?" Heather said, facing her. "WHAT?"
"I tore them up," her mother said. "You're not going."
"What? WHY? Why would you DO that?"
"I know it doesn't seem like it now, but I think it's for the best. You're always losing yourself, escaping. It's not good for you."
"I'M always escaping?" Heather couldn't believe her ears. "Oh my god, are you serious? I'm always escaping? You're the one who can't stop drinking! You're the one who's falling down drunk all the time!"
Her mother clasped her hands together. "I know, baby. I know."
"All those nights you came home drunk...with those men...those horrible men..."
Her mother closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks. She tried to collect herself. "I have to go to a meeting, baby. We'll talk about it when I get back."
"I don't WANT to talk to you about it! I hate you! I HATE YOU! I'm GLAD they hit you! I wish they would have hit you HARDER! I wish you were DEAD!"
Sarah shook her head. "This isn't you. This is Katie. Can't you see it, baby? It's like you're not even there...you just...latch onto whoever is around you..."
Heather slammed the door and leaped on to her bed, burying her head in her pillow.
______________________
They reached the building and ran up the stairs to the rooftop. The sky had darkened, and wind was screaming around the rooftop. Others had gathered there. Most Heather recognized immediately: Mia, Becca, Tyler, and Zachary were there. Some she didn't know.
A hand came up over the side of the roof: black, matted with fur.
"SIMON!" Heather screamed.
Simon clambered up to the roof. His gorilla form had grown much larger, more wild-looking. He leapt across the roof to land next to her.
Heather wrapped her arms around him. Her body shifted to be like his. "I was so worried."
"I'm okay," he said. "I'm okay."
A spark leapt between Mia and the pale white girl standing with her. The spark leapt outward, and soon sparks were jumping between all the people standing on the rooftop.
"What's happening?" Heather asked.
"I don't know," Simon said. "But at least we're together."
She nodded, embracing him with her gorilla arms.
Without warning, images flashed in her mind: A hole in the sky. Simon passing through it. Her own body made of stone, still as a statue. A strange, patchwork world. Finally, a woman with flowing red hair and red eyes. The red lady, Heather realized. The woman was in the middle of them all, and they were fighting her, or trying to fight her.
"She's killing us," Heather whispered.
"What?" Simon asked. "Who's killing us? Who's she?"
Kevin appeared on the rooftop with a crack, and the sparks began to grow in intensity.
"What's going on?" shrieked Heather. A spark leapt from Simon's shoulder to hers, knocking them apart.
______________________
Heather's pillow was soaked from her sobs, and her face was a sticky mess, when she heard the front door. Her mother had returned.
She turned her sullen gaze to the door to her room. Her mother had vow
ed to return to talk, and Heather figured the closed door would not stop her.
Footsteps approached, followed by a thump against the wall. Something slid down her wall to land on the floor.
Heather slipped out of bed and cracked her door.
Sarah was there, sitting on the floor outside her room, eyes closed, slumped against the wall.
Heather's shoulders fell. "Mom...."
"Whuh?" Sarah slurred, her eyes fluttering open. "What's wrong?"
"Come on," Heather said, reaching down to lift her. Her mother's breath was thick with the overpowering smell of scotch whisky.
Her mother tried to put her legs under her to stand, but she was useless. Heather had to pull her up the wall then put her mothers arm around her and hoist her to her feet.
"I'm sorry baby," Sarah said. "Sorry..."
"I know, mom."
She half-carried her mother to her bedroom, and lowered her to the bed, unceremoniously dumping her when she could no longer hold her up.
"Look at you," Sarah said.
Heather slipped her mother's shoes off and rolled her onto her side.
"Nothing," Sarah said.
Heather stopped. "What?"
"Nothing. Just a little nothing." Sarah began to snore.
Heather felt her face flush. She left her mother's room, shutting the door behind her, and went back to her own, where she continued to weep into her pillow until she slept.
______________________
The figure seemed to be veiled by some kind of visual fog. Sometimes it looked like a woman, and sometimes only a shape in the fog. It was slim and strange looking, with large blood red eyes. Heather thought she saw flowing red hair down its back, but sometimes it only appeared to be a red glow.
The figure approached her. It looked at her for a moment, as if considering what to do about her. Then it reached out a hand for her forehead.
An inch from her forehead, the figure paused.
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