Waiting

by Stephen Jones

  “There may be an injured child out there. We have to do something.”

  “I do not believe these soldiers are here to provide aid. They have— what’s the expression?—other fish to fry.”

  She stared at him briefly and then climbed out of the car. He came across as much less caring than he actually was. Many highly intelligent people presented themselves as unfeeling. She had to believe that.

  It was so quiet. The soldiers were not speaking. The only sounds were the metallic ticking of the cooling engines and the heavy boots tramping on the gritty, refuse-littered paving bricks.

  The sky had become a soft, glowing gray with the approach of morning. There were no more signs of lightning. The scattered clouds were pillowy silhouettes of drifting black. One of these silhouettes came down out of the sky and disintegrated into thousands of winged insects. They made a twisting, jagged dagger floating above the slow-moving soldiers. She heard Randolph getting out of the car behind her. A number of larger winged creatures, birds and bats, gathered into an immense moving cigar shape that darted rapidly from one side of the alley to the other before crashing into the pavement behind them, showering them with thousands of bits of feather, bone, and bloody flesh. The soldiers began to trot. Some were panicking, trying to scrape the organic slop off their heads, faces, and chests. Randolph grabbed her by the arm and pulled her, and then all of them started running toward the M2s parked at the other end of the alley. She heard a distressed-sounding buzzing noise. She was surprised to see that it was Randolph making the sound.

  “Are you okay?” she shouted.

  He was clutching his throat, massaging it. For a moment it appeared as if his neck had warped into something unrecognizable. Then everything looked normal again. “Run!” he shouted.

  Several fast-moving shadows sprinted through their group, passing from one side of the alley slum into the other, brushing up against them, knocking them off their stride, slowing them down. The soldiers began turning around in confusion, raising their rifles. Dorothy thought of the terrible possibilities and shouted, “Don’t fire!”

  At the end of the alley a number of large, unidentifiable human figures stumbled out of the shadows, blocking their access to the tanks. They were too far away for Dorothy to see their faces, but they appeared to be adults, dressed in ripped-up clothing, and they were unnatural in their movements, jerking about, arms dangling. She thought of stringed puppets, or the veterans she had treated suffering from nervous system impairments.

  Appallingly, they began climbing on each other. The soldiers around her stopped in their tracks. They were so surprised they lowered their weapons and stared. The frenzied activity at the darkened alley’s end resembled the beginnings of some sort of acrobatic circus act. Except there was nothing athletic about the performance—certainly nothing graceful. The figures moved stiffly, and clambered over each other with no sense of muscle applied. They were stepping on heads and kicking into eyes, mouths, ears.

  Many more of these people drifted out of the shadows and joined the others, climbed higher, or became additional support at the bottom for others to climb upon. The assemblage of various bodies soon reached a dizzying height. Dorothy even felt the urge to applaud. But then came this sudden, terrifying rush out of the darkness, out of the doors and windows and broken openings in the buildings, and bodies began filling the gaps, the spaces between the legs and around the arms of the others, wrapping their heads and curling around their feet, dozens and then hundreds of them, flying past her at inhuman speeds, children and teenagers and adults. Dark children, Negro men and women mostly, and then the occasional pale face, all of them in dirty attire: poor and ragged and disintegrating.

  She tried to get a look at some of their faces as they flew past. Most of them were slack-jawed and expressionless, and many had their eyes shut or only the whites were showing. But now and again she could detect a presence: a pleading or an anguish in a chance glance or the turn of a head, a cry for help in an open mouth or a seemingly accidental gesture, the splaying of an offered hand or a lingering look, and it broke her heart.

  This remarkable assemblage solidified before her, several stories high, studded with lolling heads like organic bolts, and it began to move. Its silhouette wasn’t at all humanlike—there was nothing resembling a head, and if it had legs they were fused together. Now and then there were the beginnings of appendages which might have been arms, but these preliminary protuberances varied in shape and there were many more than two, as if the creature was undecided as to what its final form should be. It was slow and ponderous for a few steps, although they weren’t exactly steps. The collection of bodies shifted and rolled on one edge and then the other, back and forth, progressing up the alley toward her and Randolph and the soldiers, not in a waddle as she might have expected, but in a shape-shifting wave as individual bodies drifted to the back in layers and others were brought rapidly forward.

  And although its individual pieces remained silent—people, she reminded herself, these were human beings forced to participate in something no one could ever imagine—the composition itself groaned, and made snapping and cracking and splintering noises, and only after a few minutes of watching this shocking progression did she realize these were the sounds of bones breaking.

  One of the soldiers started shooting, and then all of the soldiers were shooting, and screaming at the tops of their lungs as they fired in some kind of hysterical battle cry. She heard and saw the soldier wearing the man-pack radio shouting into his handset for reinforcements when one edge of the rotating bodies caught him and threw him aside.

  “Stop shooting!” she screamed. “Those are human beings! There are children in there!”

  Randolph grabbed her by the arm and dragged her with him back up the alley. “They’re already dead, Lieutenant, or soon will be. Profoundly changed in any case, and undoubtedly better off killed quickly. Whatever is driving this doesn’t need them alive. They are quite simply . . . material.”

  Some of that material extended itself—a gigantic arm consisting of entangled bodies—reaching down and swatting several soldiers with tremendous force, their frantic cries fading as they disappeared into distant shadows.

  At that moment the Browning machine guns on the two tanks began firing, followed by the concussive boom of two 37mm shells, one after the other.

  Randolph and Dorothy were suddenly showered in human debris. She turned and saw that the previously tightly-knit edifice of bodies had giant jagged holes through which she could see the sun just coming up behind the Capitol’s dome. The left side of the colossal creature now had a ragged edge where bits of its various jigsaw humans had been blown apart, but it still managed to move.

  There was another explosion from one of the tanks and the creature reeled as some of its supporting members vanished in a wash of red. More replacement bodies began pouring into it from the end of the slums as if they’d been sucked out of their homes. These figures were assimilated as soon as they arrived, each individual absorbed to make an invisible repair. The creature actually grew larger between each spray of machine gun fire and exploding shell. And still the bodies rushed in to feed its growth.

  Then the entire sculpture of flesh and blood and bone turned and rolled onto the offending tanks. They bent and came apart beneath it. Dorothy could see the broken bodies of the soldiers sucked out of the tanks and fed into the creature, its center building out with each new addition.

  It pivoted again and began its rapid movement back in their direction. Some of the soldiers had managed to get to the end of the alley when it went for the tanks and now fired back from the other direction, toward Dorothy, Randolph, and the others. The bullets passed right through the dead flesh of the thing and into the dirt and pavement at their feet.

  “We must find shelter!” Randolph yelled into her ear.

  They moved off to their right into the dark shacks. She could hear the pings on the metal washtubs. Lumber and brick were coming apart in small e
xplosions around them. They crouched low behind some garbage cans as the butchered construction crunched past them. It appeared to be reconfiguring itself. Instead of a tall organism it was becoming a broad one as bodies flowed over each other and limbs altered their entanglement to become a series of grotesque appendages—dozens of them—spreading out into an insect-like arrangement scuttling over the abandoned cars and trucks.

  Some of the soldiers made a stand just ahead, and they managed to stall it temporarily. A few of the massive legs swung back around in vaguely probing movements.

  “Randolph! We need to get inside!” The words came out in a rasp. Could that awful thing hear her? She had no idea.

  They went for the nearest opening, a raw frame missing its door, tattered bits of tile and rug just inside the entrance. A few feet in, Randolph stumbled and Dorothy went down on top of him, her bag swinging around and striking her painfully in the back of the head. She rolled off Randolph quickly and whispered into his ear, “Did I injure you?”

  He stirred, groaned, and mumbled, “Just lost my wind for a moment.” He rolled over onto his shoulder and gazed at her. “We are not alone in here.”

  She looked past him. The only light was whatever rays of sunrise had managed to filter their way inside. There was an antique stove against one wall, or pieces of one, the sections held together with wire and old metal plates. A low table with mismatched legs sat a few feet away. Much of the rest of the room appeared to be filled with large quantities of rags—rags a poor person might sell, or wear, or sleep in, or nest in. “Where?”

  He motioned upward with his eye. She tilted her head ever so slightly and detected something large on the deeply shadowed ceiling. It began to move back and forth, rocking, and then it scurried across the ceiling into a corner. A black child, frightened, weeping. How did the poor thing ever get up there? Dorothy sat up.

  “Lieutenant!” Randolph hissed.

  “I think it’s harmless. She. I believe that’s a little girl up there.” Randolph sighed and sat up as well. “More than a little girl. She moved across the ceiling without falling.”

  Dorothy kept her eyes on the girl. “Poor child. She looks frightened.”

  “Of course,” he stopped. Then he said, “Look around you. There are more.”

  Dorothy lowered her eyes. They’d adjusted to the lighting conditions inside the room. The walls were papered in mismatched patterns. Much had been stripped away to reveal the filthy plaster beneath. A thick portion of dust floated in the distinct rays coming through the empty doorframe. Two Negro children were curled together into one corner, their eyes fixed on her. Another lay half-concealed under rags beneath the low table. Two or three or four were mixed in with the rags in the darkest corner away from the door and nearest the stove. She supposed that normally that’s where these children slept on colder days. And another one or two or three climbed the walls like giant flies and joined the original one who still looked so frightened. She thought of the patterns the insects made on the walls and ceiling back at the house when Randolph had returned from the Dreamscape.

  “How can we help them?”

  “We can’t.”

  “Randolph . . .”

  “Look at their heads, Lieutenant. Their necks are broken.”

  She studied each figure. Strange how it hadn’t registered before—initially they had seemed almost normal, other than the fact that they could defy gravity and crawl up walls. Their heads were on backward, or tilted at impossible angles, or both. Or moved too freely, as if not connected to their bodies at all.

  “My God. I would swear I could see signs of emotion glistening in their eyes, of intelligence.”

  “Perhaps you did,” he said, “but that intelligence belonged to something else.”

  The other broken children had edged up the walls until they were all hanging there, impossibly, from the ceiling. And as she studied them she could see the abnormalities: the impossibly wide spread of legs and arms (because their limbs were broken), the complete articulation of the joints, the extra bends in their torsos, and just the insect-like jerkiness of their movements as they scrambled across the ceiling.

  “Should we run?” She tried to contain her terror.

  “I do not believe they intend to attack. I’m not even sure they are aware we are here. I believe they were forgotten, or perhaps they are spare body parts for that massive creature outside. But I suggest we might want to remain as still as possible for now.”

  So they waited for a very long time, and Dorothy contemplated their situation, and the circumstances of these children, living in the worst possible conditions within sight of America’s very centers of power, Capitol Hill, the president, the Washington Monument of the Human Protection League itself, which was protecting, protecting . . . “Why was the breach here, in this poor neighborhood?” she asked.

  He didn’t respond immediately. “I have no idea. Even when I am in the Dreamscape I have no real insight into what they are thinking. They are like gods to us, completely alien. We cannot even begin to comprehend how their minds work, or even what their senses might apprehend.”

  “But why didn’t it come through closer to you, to your . . . our quarters, since presumably you initiated this breach? Or even nearer the Monument, or the Capitol, where you spend most of your time? Or perhaps you no longer feel you have any connection, or responsibility, for these incursions?”

  “Because . . . because . . .” He paused. She had heard the beginnings of a teenage whine in his voice. Perhaps he had heard them too. “You have to understand that the connections are unanchored. The passages float, they lack alignment. My silver key provides only a temporary anchor point, when used properly. We have nothing effective, as yet, against these breaches. No weapon. But a small electromagnetic pulse may sometimes discourage them from opening in a particular location. It diverts them some small distance. Central D.C. is protected in a small way via this method.”

  “A small distance?”

  “A very slight diversion,” he said.

  “So certain other neighborhoods are threatened, Randolph. Certain, poorer neighborhoods?”

  “That is up to the government,” he replied, not looking at her. “They don’t seek my input on those decisions.”

  She glanced up, thinking perhaps they deserved to have these poor children dropping on them, doing whatever they might. Perhaps she and Randolph could be some sort of food source for these malnourished children? It was a fantasy that smacked of justice.

  The last of the children were leaving, crawling off the ceiling and into the empty door opening and disappearing outside. She helped Randolph up and they followed.

  Outside it was early morning and overcast, the alley painted mainly in pewter tones with the occasional white or yellow reflection. As her eyes adjusted, brown and rust-colored stains became more evident, as did the torn and leaking anatomy. Her nose stung from the rank odor of slaughtered meat. They passed their automobile. It was useless—its hood and engine compartment smashed in. Two other trucks were seriously damaged; two others appeared intact and drivable. Farther ahead in the alley the giant conglomerated creature lay sprawled, its multiple limbs moving listlessly. Dorothy watched in amazement as the children—what had been children—she’d spent the last hour with climbed over bodies and locked themselves into place within the ragged edges of the form, making it more complete, bringing it closer to whole again.

  “It uses the adults for the major muscles, the grosser movements,” Randolph explained. “The smaller children give it refinement, more precision in its actions.”

  Several soldiers stood around, aiming their rifles at the creature. They appeared exhausted, barely awake. Dorothy saw no sign of their driver or the young soldier who had ridden here with them, but the older soldier with the man-pack sat by the side of the alley, looking stunned.

  “Soldier, what’s the status here?”

  “Lots of casualties, miss, including Private Blake. I can’t find the sergean
t heading up this detail. He was in the truck behind us. Some of the men . . . this thing threw their bodies a long way. And it turned over the tanks, shook them like they were baby toys.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “A little banged up is all. That damn thing broke my radio. I can’t reach headquarters.”

  “We need to evacuate the remaining civilians.”

  “Ma’am, I don’t believe there are any remaining civilians.” He looked uneasily at the arrangement of bodies. “I think they’re all part of that thing, the ones not blown up or shot to hell.”

  “Lieutenant.”

  Dorothy turned around to face Randolph. He gestured toward the creature. Several soldiers had dropped their rifles and were now calmly climbing over the previously acquired human beings and sliding into gaps, wrapping themselves around and between limbs, becoming additional parts of this creature from the Dreamscape.

  She intercepted one such soldier as he was making ready to step up onto a leg, grabbed him by his arm and spun him around. “Stop!” she shouted into his face. He stared at her as if blind. His mouth moved loosely, as if chewing up food that wasn’t there.

  “There’s no point,” Randolph said behind her. “He’s simply building material now.”

  The soldier started climbing again, fit himself into a hole. Once he was in place the creature shuddered into life again and began to rise. The stench was almost unbearable. Dorothy stepped back and rejoined Randolph and the soldier with the broken radio. They all watched as the colossal figure reached its full height and moved a few yards toward the street with thunderous cracking and popping. Some parts fell off, leaving a gruesome trail.

  Dorothy asked, “Have you seen anything like this before in the Dream-scape?”

  Randolph had to raise his voice as several bodies exploded when the great being began stretching, swinging its arms. “There is nothing like this in the Dreamscape.”