A moment later, the lights went off.
The man meant business now. Meant to kill him. Get him in the darkness where no one, not even Jamie, would ever see what happened.
And so he waited, sweaty and shaking, his body trembling with agitation, fear, and something else, something he didn’t dare think about. He was symptomatic again. He knew it. He held the knife handle in his quivering hands, waited for the moment he knew was coming. A footstep echoed on the concrete floor around the corner. Without thinking, with hesitation, he leapt to his feet, whirled around the corner, and drove the knife blade home. It sank into the man’s chest with a sickening,thoonk, and he immediately felt slick, hot liquid gushing out onto his hands. He pulled the knife out and drove it home again.
The man in black, the man in the shadows, let out two shocked yelps, then doubled over and fell to the floor. Jamie turned and ran into the darkness.
***
“Wait here,” Fritz whispered.
“Where am I gonna go?” Kelli hissed back.
They were in the tunnel. Had been crouched there since the moment the lights failed.
“I’m gonna try to find a light to get us out of here”
“All right.” She responded.
She reached her hand out into the black, feeling through the air, tapping Fritz’s chest with her fingertips.
“Be careful,” she said.
He grunted and headed into the darkness, feeling his way along the painted brick walls and metal locker doors. He was still in the hallways beneath the basketball courts. The tunnel to the hockey rink was somewhere to the right. He felt a steady flow of icy air moving down the hallway toward him. No sounds from the rink.
He turned left and felt his way along in the darkness. Then all hell broke loose in the distance. The sounds of a fight, followed by frantic footsteps running off down the hall. No! Running toward him! Shit! Whoever it was was shrieking now. Howling! Howling with the most terrifying, monstrous sound that Fritz had ever heard. Gooseflesh rippled up his arms and legs. Fritz raised his hands in self-defense, then, and only then, did he realize what was happening. Jamie came lunging out of the darkness, reaching for him with bloody, outstretched hands. Fritz dove to the side, leaving Jamie to ricochet off the wall and skitter across the floor of the tunnel. Only this wasn’t Jamie. The wailing, frantic angry sounds coming from this creature’s mouth, no, that wasn’t Jamie anymore. Without waiting to see if he was all right, Fritz pulled himself up and raced away, even as he heard Jamie scrambling to his feet again and coming right back after him. Fritz ran flat out now, arms and legs pumping wildly.
He had to get upstairs. He had to get outside. But he couldn’t see shit. Still he sprinted full out. The end of the tunnel, the stairs to the SAU, they’d be coming up any minute now. Any second. Just as he approached the tunnel, his foot hit something on the floor, something that groaned on impact, and sent Fritz flying head over heels, landing on his shoulder and sliding across the paved floor. Something in his arm socket crunched sickeningly. He pull himself to his feet and continued running, even as he heard the other person in the darkness scrambling up and pulling himself to the side. Fritz lunged up the stairs, smashing into the closed stairway door in the darkness. Something in his face crunched.
“Get out of here!” He shouted, wailing in panic. Get out of here!
He pushed the door open, but he sensed Jamie lunging out after him. Fritz’s right foot set down on the first outside step, just as a hand grabbed his other ankle, stopping him short and sweeping his face down to the concrete steps.
Wham!
His face and jaw struck the steps with a concussion inducing smash. The upper row of Fritz’s teeth exploded in his mouth. Blood and chips sprayed down the back of his throat, and before his eyes. He drew up into a ball and pulled himself against the wall, waiting for the attack, but none came. Instead, he heard Jamie hit the ground himself now. Heard his feet slipping and shifting on the brick walkway. Heard his breathing. The sounds of a confused animal. Nothing more. An angry, violent, dangerous animal - rabid and unaware. Fritz pulled himself against the wall now, gasping for air and sucking in mouthfuls of pain. He fought to form words through the mess of shredded skin, shattered teeth, and gushing blood that poured forth from his lips, burbled through his clasped fingers. His eyes shot open wide—
“Jamie! Jamie no!” he screamed.
Jamie spun suddenly, his foot arcing around in a sharply angled kick that shattered Fritz’s cheekbone and sent him sprawling.
Fritz watched as Jamie stepped calmy over him and took off into the night. The wind roared again and the lights flickered back on, just as his world went dark.
***
The power held, and Kelli took off down the corridor. Near the end, she hit a slick spot on the floor, damn near going down as her feet slid out beneath her. She turned back as she ran, stumbling to the side at the sight of a bloody puddle. Smeared handprints swirled out from the red. Boot tracks moved away from the pool; a dragging trail pointed in the direction she was moving.
She went faster now, turning down the side corridor, afraid of what she’d find. She had to get the fuck out of this place. She took the tunnel steps three at a time, coming out in the Campus Connections foyer, and threw the double doors open with all her weight, only to stop short, turning on her heel, as she leapt over another pool at the bottom of the stairs.
“Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus!”
She rounded the corner, her feet barely touching the ground.
What had happened? What had happened?!!
She burst out into the snowy courtyard and stopped in the walkway, where she could only watch in horror at what was playing out before her.
A figure was running down the walkway towards the Sentinel statue. It was Jamie. Another man was slumped against the wall of the SAU building, a figure in a uniform, who held something in his hand, and screamed after him. He was telling Jamie to stop, threatening to fire. Fritz was staggering down the middle of the walkway, one hand held to his face, his arms and hands soaked with blood. He was screaming something too. Something drowned out by a blast of wind. The clock stopped - time stood still. Kelli slid to a stop as a flash of hot light glinted from the edge of the officer’s gun. At the same moment, a burst of red exploded from Jamie’s thigh, and he went down in the snow at the base of the sculpture. Fritz stopped short as the man in the uniform collapsed against the building and slumped to the ground.
Jamie was spread out in the snow, his upper body crumpled against his knees. One hand held his thigh. From a distance, Kelli saw the sudden shift in his body. His movements grew slower. Smoother. She raced towards him again. Past Fritz. Past the officer, who lay in a motionless heap.
She would get to Jamie and help him now. He was going to be okay. It was serious, but he would be okay. Even now, he was climbing to his feet. He was standing up and turning toward her. His face was calm. He saw her coming.
Kelli’s ears filled with thunder, needles of ice stung her face, and the wind, the wind came blowing through the courtyard around her.
The buildings threw echoes everywhere. The Sentinel started to rumble and quake. She looked up slowly at the sounds of fireworks crackling and fizzling above her. Only these weren’t fireworks. These weren’t hot explosion of sparks and fire, but rather the cold, brittle eruptions of ice shearing free from the uppermost portions of the statue’s metal frame. The wind caught the first lethal wave of shards, throwing them against the buildings, but even as they exploded in an icy hail, another gust was ripping away an even bigger sheath of ice.
She looked at Jamie. He looked back at her. And time slowed again. The air grew silent; a vacuum rising around them. Then, a single blade of ice, thick as a metal rod, long as a yard stick, blasted down through the air, driving itself through the top of Jamie’s head and out through the bottom of his mouth.
Jamie’s eyes locked on her in shock as Kelli’s mouth fell open.
There was no spr
ay of blood. No blood at all. Crimson ice formed at both ends of the bloody shard.
Jamie stood for a moment, slumped to the side, and fell on his back.
Kelli ran to him as he began to shake and convulse in her arms. She looked into his eyes. They were totally calm. Smiling back at her.
He held her gaze as his eyes rolled back, and his head tilted up toward the sky. The two of them watched the snow swirling down on them from the darkness overhead.
WAITING
There have been plenty of million-to-one shots. The bullet that hits a cop in the eye, flies clean through his head, but otherwise leaves him fit as a fiddle and ready for Krispy Kremes. There’s the miner blasting TNT into a bank of rocks, who accidentally sends a metal rod up through his jaw and out through the top of his skull - forgets who’s President, but goes on with his normal life. And then there’s the guy who sustains a massive head injury, who by all logic should be dead, but somehow survives and wishes that he hadn’t. That was Jamie.
Dr. Price always said the implant couldn’t be fixed if it failed, and boy, had it failed, leaving behind a trail of broken bodies and tortured souls, all fighting for survival.
The fleeting benefits had come at a heavy price.
What good was a mind without a body? Well, what good was a body without a sound mind?
Jamie had plenty of time to ponder that now.
The ice.
That shard of ice.
An archer couldn't have made a better shot.
Down through the top of his skull, dead center in the middle of the good doctor’s nightmarish device, and back out through the bottom of his jaw. In an instant, Jamie was back at square one. As he lay in the snow, his body spasming, the medics at the scene had treated him like any other mortally wounded patient, but he knew differently. This wasn’t new. This wasn’t the end. He was back where he’d started.
They stabilized him. Treated the injury. Operated on his brain, and checked him into critical care. That’s where he was now. His head wrapped in bandages. His skull braced against the frame of his bed to keep it still. To let it recover. Just in case.
The shaking was gone, but who knew if it would return? It didn’t look good. The implant was gone. His brain had been skewered. There would be many more operations to come, but no more implants. Not likely.
No more miracle cures.
Now it was a waiting game. They’d wait and see if the symptoms returned. Maybe it had been better than a million to one shot. Maybe it had knocked out the regions of Jamie’s brain that put him through such hell, but he doubted it. He stared up into space, his thoughts all but drowning him now. Then he felt small, warm fingers slipping around his hand, wrapping together with his own. He looked up at Kelli. She smiled down at him. His eyes were calm again. He was back with her, back in his own world. She squeezed his hand and nestled up to him. They lay back together, waiting to see what would happen.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to Jason Croatto for the snazzy new cover art and interior layout!
Thanks to my editor Louise Ladd, who inspired me to found Cryptic Bindings in the first place and start getting some “creepy little books” out into the marketplace instead of spending years mulling over the many ways to attempt to storm the castle. Louise did her best to point out the weaknesses in this book, while providing enough encouragement to keep me going. Where, because of deadlines, laziness, or flat out stubbornness, I have failed to iron out the “cheats” in this book, I can’t only hope that I cheated in style.
Thanks to my friends and former coworkers, Suzanne Coopersmith and Sharyl Burson, who both made their way through the early drafts, and continue talking to me, despite everything they’ve had to endure.
Thanks to my mother Elizabeth Attebery, who has always supported by writing, and really, every creative venture I’ve ever undertaken, even when they involved the questionable use of steak knives, cardboard boxes, monster masks, and the use of her station wagon.
I can’t forget the help of my editorial assistants, Bueller and Mimi and their sisters Winter and Mocha, who have all provided welcome entertainment and amusement as I’ve poured over the text of this book over many, many years.
Thanks also to Cathie Attebery and Robin Jensen, who gave me a place to live when I was trying to figure out what in the hell to do with my life. Cathie’s motto “everything happens for a reason” just might be right!
And of course, thanks my wife Stephanie, who has put up with me for 13 years now, and didn’t throw me out on the street when horrible jobs, silly excuses, and plenty of frustration undoubtedly made me an absolute monster to live with. She’s also fairly patient when it comes to the way I obsess about, well, everything.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Attebery earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the School of Film and Animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology. When he isn’t writing or editing books and screenplays, Mike spends his days worrying about... everything, and kicking and knocking on stuff to see what it’s made out of. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife and their two ferrets, Winter and Mocha. He is currently at worked on his fourth novel.
www.mikeattebery.com
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