by Platt, Sean
Luca finally realized that it wasn’t just stuff they were spitting into the sky.
The tornados were spitting what was left of Black Island.
His eyes widened as he screamed.
**
Our Earth
Los Orillas, California
April 2, 2012
SIX MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…
Luca woke in his bed, soaking wet, and screeching.
But no one could hear his scream through the hand on his mouth.
Luca stared in disbelief as the other Luca, the one who belonged here in this world, the one whose life he had stolen. But he was young again, not old. He sat across from him on the bed, his palm pressed hard against Luca’s mouth, trapping his scream mostly in his throat.
He’s come to take his life back.
He’s mad and he’s come to get me!
“Shhh,” the other Luca whispered, looking at the closed bedroom door, then back to Luca. “Okay?”
Luca nodded, and Other Luca slowly removed his hand.
“What happened?” Luca said, “How did we get here? How did you get here? What happened to the island?”
“It’s all gone,” Other Luca said, his voice calm, no emotion. “The Darkness won.”
“What?”
“The Darkness. It had another name long ago. Now it is just The Darkness. It took over everything.”
Luca swallowed, thinking back to what happened on October 15 — how the old preacher man had taken the vial from his brother and opened it. When darkness spilled out and started to swallow everything, Luca had managed to get away, and pulled Boricio away, too, though he wasn’t sure where he’d pulled his brother to.
That’s when he wound up here. It was the last time he’d seen his brother. Luca had tried to contact Boricio several times, but was never able. Instead, he only saw the Other Boricio, with the Other Luca and Will.
“Was it the vials? Is that what was in the vials Boricio asked me to get?”
“We are the Light, but also can be made into Darkness by intervention from dark souls. We changed you when your brother used us to cure you. And you carried the Light over here to this world and put it in this child. But then you changed us when you found us again. You, your brother, and the others, tainted some of us — turned them into the Darkness. Our only hope was this child, Luca.”
“What do you mean this child?” Luca whispered. “You’re not Luca?”
Other Luca began to softly glow, as an impossibly bright light seeped through the child, then spilled onto the blankets and wall.
“What are you?” Luca asked.
“What are we,” Other Luca answered, pointing to Luca’s stomach, which, to his surprise, was glowing with the same light.
Luca let out a startled yelp, as Other Luca quickly returned his hand to the boy’s mouth. When skin met skin, a spark of electricity shot through him, causing him to jump from the bed, in surprise rather than pain.
He stepped back from Other Luca, trying to figure him out.
“No, I’m human. I’m still me,” Luca said.
“Yes, you only have a part of us inside you. This child, Luca, opened the final vial. His purity, his kindness, gave us strength to fight. But we could not defeat It. Despite all the people I pulled over to fight, we were not enough. Now the war is over, and that world is lost.”
“Where is my family?”
“Your father is dead. Your brother has become The Darkness, Chaos, The Void. I could not destroy it. I could not bring him back. I had to leave before he murdered us all.”
Luca cried, swallowing tears, along with the urge to wail and wake his — Other Luca’s — parents.
Luca suffered through a long silence, where Other Luca stared at him as if observing a rare insect even though he was the one glowing more, until he finally asked, “What happened to everyone? The other people I saw with you? The other Will, the other Boricio? Are they . . . dead?”
“Will died. Boricio Wolfe, he is alive. Many died. Many are now part of The Darkness. Others, I saved, as I did you, and returned them back to their world before the Darkness could claim them.”
Luca fell to the floor, sobbing. “I’m so sorry. I thought I was helping Boricio. I thought he’d save Rose.”
“I know your intentions were good,” Other Luca said.
“And I didn’t mean for you to be taken from your family and brought to my world,” Luca cried. “I didn’t mean to take your family. But I didn’t know where else to go, and I was scared. When I came here, you were gone. I didn’t know you were gone. Then, when I did see you over there, and tried to switch places back, tried to talk to you, you couldn’t see me.”
“It’s okay,” Other Luca said as his light began to burn brighter.
“What’s happening to you?” Luca asked.
“I have to go.”
“Go? Go where? Don’t you want your life back?”
“That’s not possible.” Other Luca shook his head. “We are now one — Luca, and the Light. We cannot stay here.”
“What? Where are you going?”
The glowing child began to fade, barely there and about to vanish.
“No!” Luca cried. “Don’t leave me here! I don’t belong here. I can’t look at your family knowing I took you from them. Please. Come back. Or whoever, or whatever you are, come into me, and give Luca his life back.”
“We can’t,” Other Luca said.
“Why not?”
“You are not pure.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Luca cried. “I’m not Luca! They aren’t my parents. I feel like a big phony!”
Other Luca’s eyes stared from behind the light. “Do you want to forget? Do you want to be the other Luca?” Its words were everywhere and nowhere at once.
“What do you mean?”
“We can give you his memories. We can erase yours, except your recent ones, which we can partially remove. You will wake up believing that you are him. With his memories. Your parents will never have died. You will never have known Will and Boricio Bishop. You will be Luca as he was before The Darkness.”
Luca stared into the light. “You can do that?”
Other Luca nodded.
But can I? Can I forget everything? My family. My real family — my mom, dad, and sister who died? And then my other family, Will and Boricio? Do I want to forget them?
“You must decide now.” Other Luca’s body was gone already, and now the light was disappearing too. “We must go. But we can take your pain with us.”
“And what happens to you, to the Other Luca? Where are you going? Won’t you miss your family?”
“We are one, now, you and I, Luca. I feel what you feel. I can be with them through you. Feel their love. Feel them. But I cannot live here in body. I’ve grown too weak. I’ve changed too much. But you can forget it all. But you must decide now.”
Other Luca’s light began to flicker.
It’s now or never.
All the pain. All the regrets. Everything can go away.
“Will I still be me?”
“Yes, but you must—”
The light crackled. The Light was almost gone.
No, don’t go!
Luca cried out, “Yes! I’ll do it!”
Other Luca flared, and the light went so suddenly bright that the room seemed as though it was nothing but pure white.
Then it went dark and back to normal until Other Luca was only a mist.
Am I too late?
Luca couldn’t see the hand he felt on top of his head, but he felt it there like the nose on his face or the arm hanging from his shoulder.
Warmth spread through his body.
Luca’s eyes fell involuntarily shut as darkness crept around the edge of his memory. He thought of his little sister — his real sister. The first time he looked into her crib and made her laugh. And how excited he was.
He had looked at his mom, who he didn’t know was watching them.
She had smil
ed at them in a way that made him feel loved from the inside out.
Wait. No, I don’t want to forget.
I want to be me.
Then, the memory was gone, and he fell into his bed, trying to remember what it was he’d forgotten. And why he was wet, smelling of saltwater.
And why he was going to bed soaking.
Luca was too tired to try and make sense of messy thoughts that didn’t want to be cleaned. He curled into bed, pulled the covers up to just under his chin, then closed his eyes. For a moment, he thought he saw a light floating over his bed, but then figured his mind was playing tricks.
Maybe it was a dream.
Sleep swallowed Luca with a smile.
* * * *
CHAPTER 15 — Ed Keenan Part 2
Our Earth
Palm Coves, Florida
Ed’s safehouse
July 2012
NINE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…
Ed patted Becca’s back and glanced at the TV’s clock for the hundredth time, still waiting for the 15-minute mark to pass.
He wished he’d eaten before trying to put Becca down for her noontime nap, because this was the third time he’d tried, and they’d been sitting on the couch for nearly an hour.
Fifteen minutes seemed to be the minimum it took for Teagan’s baby to fall into a deep enough sleep for a trip to the crib without her waking. If Ed rose from the couch too soon, Becca would start crying. He’d have to start the whole process over, starting with the rocking. If he waited too long, same thing.
Ed had been held hostage at gunpoint a half-dozen times in his career, but he was now held hostage by something that remained years away from being able to clean itself, and he was held hostage nearly every damn day.
Ed decided next time, he’d do the grocery shopping instead of surrendering to Jade and Teagan. It was if they were so excited to get out of the house, especially together, that they took FOREVER to do what he could have easily done in 20 minutes. He imagined the two of them sitting in the grocery store cafe, sipping on the chai lattes they both liked so much — though for the life of him he couldn’t see why — and eating overpriced scones, while his lunch schedule was dictated by the tiny tyrant in his arms.
He looked down at Becca, and most of his annoyance faded like daylight at dusk and he found a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
It seemed like forever since Jade was this age. Ed could hardly remember her so small, nor being so hard to get down for a nap. Though, it wasn’t like he’d really been around much during those early years. These were probably the kinds of things he’d missed out on. This was normal life for normal fathers. Well, as normal as life could be at the moment, living in hiding under assumed identities, following the hell and fury of the past half year that started on October 15.
As the clock finally ticked past the 15-minute mark, again, Ed stood, slowly, careful not to stir Becca, displaying a dexterity he’d not used since escaping from an underground cage in the Ukraine six years ago.
He navigated across the toy-littered floor with the same grace, making it to the other side of the house to Becca and Teagan’s bedroom.
As he reached for the knob, his doorbell rang.
Shit!
These damned solicitors always come at nap time!
Can’t they read the NO SOLICITORS sign on the door?
He looked down, terrified that Becca would open her eyes and start screaming.
But her eyes remained still, fluttering under her lids as he rushed her into the room, then carefully set her beneath the Pooh Bear mobile in her crib. As Ed eased away from the crib, the doorbell rang again. Ed cringed, certain Becca would wake up and he’d have to hurt — maybe kill — whoever was on the other side of the door, threatening his lunch.
Ed raced from one end of the house to the other, and froze when he looked at the security monitor in the kitchen, which should have displayed feed from above the front door, but instead, showed only static.
His heart raced as he reached into the top of the pantry, retrieved his shotgun, and started toward the front door.
He approached slowly, quietly.
The doorbell rang again, twice in a row.
You fucker! You just WANT to wake her up, don’t you?
Or, is the Agency finally here to take me out?
Ed peered through the peephole to see a face he never thought he’d see again — Sullivan, the man from Black Island — a man he’d not seen since they all vanished in a flash of white before somehow getting returned to their Earth.
What the hell? What’s he doing on this Earth? What’s he doing at MY door?
“What do you want?” Ed asked through the door, keeping his aim steady.
“You’re a hard man to find, Mr. Keenan,” Sullivan said. “We need to talk.”
Ed growled, “I’m hard to find because I don’t feel like talking.”
“May I please come in?”
“What’s this about?” Ed asked.
“Please,” Sullivan said, moving his face closer to the peephole. “I’m not here to cause trouble or interfere in your lives. But we need to talk.”
Ed closed his eyes, sighing. He didn’t have any reason to distrust Sullivan, but he found it odd that the man had been able to find him. Ed had gone through great pains to set this house up long before he was declared an enemy by the Agency. Nobody could trace the house to him. He was a ghost, so far as the world was concerned. If Sullivan, someone without any resources on this planet, was able to pinpoint Ed’s location, who else could?
Ed opened the door, keeping his gun on Sullivan, then ushered the youthful looking, neatly dressed man man inside. Sullivan looked like he was going door-to-door peddling religion.
“Keep it quiet, Becca’s sleeping.”
Sullivan smiled. “I’m glad to see that you’re taking care of Teagan and Becca. Keenan, the other Keenan, would be happy to know that. You know, if he’d made it.”
Ed wanted to say that he didn’t really give a shit what the other Keenan would’ve thought, but the look in Sullivan’s eyes, his sincerity and friendliness, kept Ed’s tongue from flapping. Besides, Ed had seen on one of the video feeds on Black Island how the other Keenan had died, bravely fighting a fight that Ed should’ve been there for. Hell, perhaps Ed would’ve died instead of his doppelganger.
Ed looked Sullivan up and down, “Are you carrying?”
“Always.” Sullivan reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol, an HK USP .45, and handed it to Ed, butt first.
Ed patted him down, searching for more weapons, but found none. He led Sullivan toward his study, where a bank of monitors showed every room of the six-bedroom house, as well as all the areas outside. Ed glanced at the screen showing Becca still sleeping, then offered Sullivan a seat opposite him, at his planning table.
“How did you find me?” Ed said, cutting to the chase.
“I’m a resourceful person.”
“Bullshit,” Ed countered. “Tell me now. Who else knows I’m here?”
“Don’t worry, you’re safe. I found you because Will and Luca weren’t the only ones granted abilities by the vials. I’m not nearly as gifted as either of them, but I’m gifted enough to find the four of you.” He shook his head. “But you don’t need to worry about whoever else is trying to find you.”
Ed wasn’t sure if he believed Sullivan, but Sullivan was always an honest broker, and Ed sensed nothing fishy, so he was inches from buying the guy’s story.
“So,” Ed said, “What do I have to worry about? I assume you’re not just here to say hello.”
Sullivan swallowed, adjusting himself in his seat.
“Luca brought most of us back home,” he said, then cleared his throat. “But we’re not alone. Something else came back with us.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 16 — Paola Olson
Our Earth
Harrison, North Carolina
July 2012
NINE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…
Paola dipped her fork into the quiche, her hand practically trembling. The bite was inches from her mouth when she suddenly stopped, inspecting the chunk of egg, ham, cheese, and the specks of green spinach bulging from the white as though taunting her, and ruining a perfectly good breakfast.
Spinach was the Devil’s vegetable.
“Just try it,” Boricio said coming from the kitchen to the dining room and setting a basket of muffins in the center of the table. “Breakfast doesn’t always have to be pancakes.”
“But pancakes are yummy!”
“So is this. Have I ever bullshitted you, Kid? And besides, didn’t you have enough pancakes during the Apocalypse? Hell, a short stack would practically have to bulge with blueberries and the promise of a half-billion dollars to get me to chew ’em again.”
Boricio laughed, and Paola’s mom laughed with him. She took a seat beside her daughter and said, “Come on, you’re gonna hurt Boricio’s feelings. Just try it.”
“Yeah, please don’t make me cry.” Boricio rubbed his fists into his eyes and loudly boo-hooed. “Besides, you know how much most people would pay for a breakfast like this? I worked at this joint called Au Poivre in Georgia where people who liked to have the best stuff in their mouth, and had wallets fat enough to pay for it, spent north of 25 greenbacks for a slice of my quiche!”
“I’d pay twenty-five dollars not to eat it,” Paola laughed.
“OK,” Boricio said, pretending to be upset, “Get out! Oh wait, this is your place. Well, you’re lucky I’m a guest, or you’d see me throw a real shit fit.”
Paola nudged the food into her mouth, then quickly swallowed, gagging as it went down. She grabbed her glass of milk and took a long swig, though it did little to disguise the gross aftertaste of spinach.