Glitch

by Brenda Pandos

  I moved down the hall toward the window. Willowy trees swayed in the wind in a Brighton I didn’t recognize. Worn buildings and streets overgrown with brush and weeds were nothing like the beautiful pristine place where I’d grown up. Pride from how Brightonians rose from the ashes anew swelled. So much would change in such a little time. Why did the EA become so corrupt?

  Voices down the hall stole my attention and I hid in the shadows. They faded as the couple rounded the corner. I tiptoed across the dirty floor toward where they’d disappeared, to listen in or see if they were the only ones here. Opened doors on either side of me led to empty rooms.

  “This would make a great hospital.”

  I jumped at the nearness of the man’s voice—Declan Wilderman, of course—and slunk into the nearest room. He came closer and I cursed my fate. It was as if my time jumping purposefully put me in his path—a path of murder—yet left me without a weapon.

  Nice.

  “And this is my office,” he swung the door open wide almost smacking me in the face with it.

  I held my breath and trembled, hiding behind it.

  A woman’s giggle followed. “What do you need an office for?”

  My stomach dropped. Why did he have to be with Mom?

  “How else are we going to get time together?”

  “Declan, honestly…” Mom chastised.

  Through the crack I watched him embrace my mom and kiss her neck. I thought I’d be sick.

  “We can’t do this, and you know that,” she whispered.

  “And why not?” he asked between kisses.

  “You know why.” She pushed him away and I did a silent happy dance.

  “Jeff, shmeff.”

  “He saved our lives and we owe him.”

  Yeah! Tell him, Mom.

  Declan huffed. “That doesn’t mean you belong to him.”

  Mom walked into the hall, her voice terse. “Well, I don’t plan on thanking him by hurting him.”

  I bit my lip, in agony listening to this conversation.

  “He’s never there for you. He spends all his time in that lab of his, for what? A cure? There’s no cure against the zombies and you know it.”

  Mom exhaled sharply. “That girl today was different. She didn’t have a scar. We could give Jeff her blood—”

  “I’m not giving him anything. Not the blood! Not you!”

  “Please… this is hard enough as it is,” Mom begged.

  “Don’t you see? He doesn’t love you like I do,” Declan said softly. “And no one has to know.”

  Sounds of kissing just about pushed me over the edge and I put my hands over my ears. Dad’s reaction to Declan’s name all made sense now. He must have found out. But a cure? We had a cure for the virus from The Attack. Did Dad end up finding a cure for zombies, too, making them become extinct? That wouldn’t make sense considering Kaden’s family said zombies were a myth propagated by the EA to control us.

  My heart continued to pound as I saw red. I couldn’t stand to hear them kissing any longer.

  At the pop and the bright light, I opened my eyes. The room had transformed. Fully furnished, I was surrounded by floor to ceiling bookshelves loaded with books. Real books made with paper.

  “Why, hello,” a startled voice said to my left. I turned.

  Declan sat at the large desk before me, his eyes cautious.

  My breath rushed in and out way too fast. He looked so much older and uglier with thinning grey hair, yellowish teeth and deep wrinkles set in his leathery face. He looked nothing like the photograph in the Advice Meeting hall depicted him.

  “That’s impressive,” he continued, gaining composer. “Have a seat, Abigail. We have a lot to talk about.”

  I moved to the leather chair and sat, back ridged. My heart raced so fast, I was sure it would seize any second.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. I have to say Anna was very clever in hiding you and if you hadn’t of attended your meeting, we might have never figured it all out… looks like you weren’t a Glitch after all.”

  I clenched my hands in my lap in attempts to stop them from shaking. Anna hid me? Who was she?

  Declan stood and pushed his hands in his pockets. A flash of a gun in a holster on his waist made my gut twist. “If Anna had been around for your meeting, you would have made her acquaintance. She is after all, your Complement.” He fanned his fingers on the desk and leaned forward. “You actually had your meeting with my assistant, Jessie. With a few computer facial changes here and there, she becomes a great fill-in when there’s a glitch.”

  I blinked at him in dismay when something clicked. It was Declan’s voice I’d heard after my meeting. He and his assistant had staged everything. But why was my Complement’s name Anna? Shouldn’t it be Abigail?

  I shook my head. “Why would our names be different?”

  His left brow rose. “That’s what I want to know. Maybe we should ask Anna?”

  We? I didn’t like the sound of that.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, before you get any ideas and zip out of here, you need to put these on.” He pulled out something from his drawer and pushed them across the desk toward me. His hand brushed a beautiful leather-bound book, secured by a lock that also lay on his desk. I briefly wondered what secrets he held inside it until my eyes fell on the handcuffs he set before me. How were those going to stop me from jumping through time?

  “No.” I lifted my chin in defiance.

  “No?”

  Headache. I need a headache.

  He smiled evilly and turned a small screen sitting on his desk toward me. Someone with brown hair kneeled on the floor in front of a guard dressed in blue. Declan clicked an intercom button. “Go ahead.”

  The cop looked up as if he saw us and nodded. Then he pulled out a gun and trained in on the person’s head. Terror spread through me. Elle, my dad and Kaden all had dark short hair, but I couldn’t see them clearly.

  “Who is that?” I asked fearfully.

  Declan clicked the intercom again. “Look at the camera.”

  When the person didn’t move, he yelled at them again, this time calling them a derogatory name.

  The man tilted his chin upward and glared. “Go ahead. Do it!” Kaden yelled.

  “No!” I stood, flung off the DOD watch and grabbed the cuffs, snapping them on.

  “I knew you’d be cooperative.” But Declan didn’t call the guard off.

  Sweat beaded on my forehead, expecting to hear a gunshot at any moment. “Make him stop!”

  Declan nonchalantly clicked the intercom button. “Hold for now.”

  I trembled, watching on as the guard finally lowered his gun. Kaden spit in his face. The guard backhanded him with the gun.

  “No!” I screamed, slamming my bound hands onto the desk.

  “That’s enough of that.” Declan clicked off the screen and walked around the side of the desk.

  “You’re a monster,” I said through gritted teeth. Anna’s hate for him made sense and everything inside me wanted to grab the gun from his belt and finish him off.

  “That’s relative, my dear, but like it or not, we’re in this together.” He produced a shiny key and leaned toward me. Grabbing my wrists, he unlocked one side of the cuffs and clasped it around his own wrist.

  “What? What are you doing?”

  He smiled. “Where you go, I go. Simple as that.”

  I formed my hands into fists and felt them shaking.

  “Now,” he said, “I need to see Anna and you’re going to take me to her.”

  I swallowed hard and frowned. “I can’t.”

  “Then Kaden will die, along with Eleanor, and then your parents. Must I go on?”

  “No,” I breathed out hoarsely.

  He yanked on the cuffs, pulling me closer to him. My wrist pinched in pain as the metal dug into my skin. “Then you’ll take me to Anna. Now.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. I don’
t control it.”

  His face twisted. “So you just magically appeared in my office. Just like that?”

  “Yes.” I hated that my voice quivered as if I were lying.

  “I don’t believe you.” He moved toward the intercom and I jerked his arm, pulling him away.

  “Don’t you dare!” I yelped.

  “Then take me!” he seethed in my face.

  I closed my eyes and willed a headache. Please, please, please.

  There was a pop, followed by darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  With a contented sigh, the Vice President shifted next to me in the dark. “See? That wasn’t so hard. You just needed the right motivation.”

  He pulled me forward and I stumbled to my feet. My bound wrist suddenly felt wet. Something smacked the wall and with a click, light poured in. Blood pooled under my wrist and dripped to the floor. Pain followed.

  I held my breath and listened. His younger self had just been here with Mom and I wasn’t sure what would happen if they met. No one was in the hall, though.

  “This is odd,” he said quickly, while scanning both directions. “Where’d everything go?”

  I sucked air between my teeth as he yanked me further, pushing open doors and looking into empty rooms. His steps slowed, then he stopped. His furious eyes landed on me.

  “Why is this like this?”

  Because I only travel to the past, moron, is what I wanted to say. Instead I pushed out a meager, “I don’t know.”

  “Where’s the lab and the rest of my staff?”

  I lifted the cuffs off the raw sores on my wrist. “I don’t think I’ve been born yet.”

  His brow puckered as his eyes scoured the dirty floor. “That’s impossible. You’re supposed to take me to Anna!”

  I was starting to believe Anna and my Complement weren’t one in the same any longer.

  “I can’t!” I yelled back in desperation. “I don’t know how!”

  He grabbed my arm and yanked. I let out a squeal in pain. “Then Kaden dies!”

  “What are you two doing here?” younger Declan called from down the hall.

  The Vice President released me, then his eyes bulged. His younger self marched toward us and slowed. They stared each other down for a long moment. My mother ran up behind the young doctor, then froze in her tracks.

  “Declan?” she asked.

  “Yes?” they said in unison. Older Declan stepped forward, holding his hand to her as if seeing an angel.

  “Maggie?” His voice cracked.

  She gasped and clutched younger Declan’s arm, her eyes wildly darting between us. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” the doctor said as he held onto Maggie and eyed his older self with disgust.

  “I’m from the future,” the Vice President said quickly and lowered his arm. “I’m here to bring a message.”

  “Future?” Mom said aghast.

  “Yes.” He straightened his shoulders. “I’m the Oracle.”

  The Oracle? I almost burst out laughing when he took my hand as if I was a willing participant in his scheme. I flung it away, forgetting I could only move so far. The chain rattled between us, tethering me painfully back to him.

  Mom’s horrified eyes stared at the contraption. “Why are you cuffed to that girl?”

  “Wait, Maggie. I think he’s here to bring the cure.” The doctor moved forward, his eyes suddenly vibrant. “Am I right?”

  Older Declan’s lips thinned. “Yes.”

  “I can’t believe this,” the doctor said, astonished. “Alice was your gift and I’ve been kicking myself for not going with my hunch. She has the antibodies in her blood?”

  Older Declan peered over at me, clearly confused. He nodded all the same.

  “Oh… I can’t believe this. We can have everything, Maggie. Everything,” the young doctor finished

  Maggie pulled away from him. “What do you mean?”

  He pointed at me. “She carries the cure to the disease. She’s our ticket to a zombie-free world.”

  The Vice President’s voice hitched for a moment as his brows creased. He knew just as well as I did, zombies didn’t exist in our timeline, but they did here. Neither the doctor nor Mom noticed his reaction.

  “Then why the cuffs?” Mom asked.

  “She kept trying to get away,” the Vice President said.

  Mom’s eyes saddened and I shook my head to alert her otherwise. Her chin lifted and a clever smile formed on her lips.

  “You won’t run, will you?”

  Her motherly tone hit hard and my voice quivered again, betraying me. “No.”

  “Great,” the doctor said, voice giddy. He pulled a syringe from his pocket. “I happened to have what I need right here.”

  “We should take off the cuffs first.” Maggie stayed Declan’s arm.

  “Sure, after I get her blood.”

  I hid my free arm behind my back and turned to the older of the two, shoving my bloodied wrist toward him. “Take them off.”

  He frowned, but pulled the key from his pocket anyway. He purposefully fumbled when trying to insert it into the lock, his fingers slipping. The doctor moved to help.

  “Just get her blood. I’ll do this,” the Vice President barked.

  “I’ve got it.” The doctor went to grab the key and Declan pushed him away. Then he recoiled as if younger Declan’s body had burned his hand and he groaned in horror.

  Something crackled as older Declan’s body stretched and pulled into a sparkling rift in the air, eventually fading from sight with a pop, only I was tethered to him. With a huge tug, my arm was yanked into the sparkles. Everything faded to black and my body tumbled over itself.

  I reemerged in the hall in my own time screaming in agony. Onlookers stood around me and watched on in horror as they tried to figure out what had happened. Vice President Declan’s limp body lay next to mine, his arm at an unnatural angle and his shoulder drenched in blood. The key, though, still protruded from the cuffs. I reached over, twisted it, and broke free of his bloodied appendage. Rolling over, I felt a snap in my shoulder, like the joint slid into place, and the excruciating pain quickly subsided. People swarmed his body, edging me out of the way.

  “What happened to the Vice President?”

  “Call a doctor!”

  “Is his arm severed?”

  “I don’t feel a pulse.”

  I slid over to the wall, favoring my shoulder, and gained my bearings. Voices zoomed around me in a blur. What had just happened? Oddly, everything else hurt but my head. Various people tried to revive the Vice President unsuccessfully as his blood drenched his shirt. Had he triggered something by touching himself? Even still, I knew they’d eventually blame me. Now was the time to escape, but I was too shocked to move.

  Run, Abby, run!

  I remained dazed, waiting. Waiting for help that wouldn’t come. Waiting to wake up from this nightmare. Waiting for someone to tell me what to do.

  Through the opened door across from me, I saw Declan’s journal, then the monitor. Concerns of Kaden’s well-being compelled me to go inside his office. I locked the door behind me and turned on the tiny monitor. Kaden’s body lay lifeless on the floor.

  “Kaden?” I called into the intercom. “Kaden!”

  His body didn’t move. Sinking to my knees, I succumbed to the knowledge of what might have happened to him. My Complement had warned me not to take him with me. Not to bring him here.

  “Why did you follow me? Why?” Tears poured down my cheeks. I’d failed.

  Screams filled the hall outside the door and I tried to tune them out, rocking in place. Kaden would disappear from both of our lives. I’d ruined everything.

  What sounded like a multitude of feet rushed past the door and within moments, the hall was quiet. Eerily quiet. Then a guttural groan followed by crunching and snapping filled the silence. The hairs on my neck stood on end. Only one thing made that noise and I prayed I was mistaken.

 
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Terror seized me as my worst fears played through my mind like a horror film. I couldn’t move. Zombies couldn’t have followed us to our timeline, could they have?

  More terrified screams permeated the air followed by agonizing silence. I shook my head. Why wasn’t Brighton on high alert? We were supposed to be prepared for this. I wanted to mourn Kaden’s death in peace, not worry about how I’d escape. I’d failed the one person who’d sacrificed everything for me.

  I caught my breath and tried to think. Maybe I was making this up. Maybe something else happened. I had to look. I had to know.

  Turning the knob quietly, I cracked opened the door and peered into the hall. A gasp escaped from my lips. Blood splatter decorated the wall and red foot prints went in both directions on the ground where Declan’s body used to be. Only his arm lay in the middle of the hall with the hand cuffs still attached.

  I closed the door and tried not to vomit. Carnage. Utter carnage. This was worse than a nightmare. My head swayed.

  Breathe, Abby. Breathe.

  Elle still needed me. She was trapped in a jail cell unaware. I’d need to find her. I’d need a weapon.

  Pulling open and tossing all of Declan’s drawers to the floor, I looked again without success. I panted and splayed my hands on the desk.

  Think, Abby. Think.

  The locked book caught my eye again. Maybe it had the answers. I tried to pry the lock open. No amount of pulling would get the lock to budge.

  Anger swelled and I threw it against the wall. Then I ran to the shelf, grabbed ahold of a stack of the books and yanked. The grouping fell together in a heap and busted opened onto the floor. Only they weren’t books at all, but empty wooden boxes painted to look like books. I pulled down another and another. Fake. All fake.

  With a scream, I crumbled to the floor and cried into my bloodied hands. Nothing made sense anymore.

  With another crunch, another grouping fell. A pile of journals spilled out. Twenty-two, identical to the one on the desk, but they weren’t locked. I opened the closest book to me.