by Dan Rix
The lantern clock displayed 11:07 p.m.
It had taken me eleven hours to get here, for a pathetic average speed of five and a half miles per hour.
It had been twenty-four hours since I’d last had a sip of water.
I passed one abandoned building after another, eyes peeled for some kind of holding tank. Floodlight towers flanked the asphalt, their bulbs dark. From every grisly piece of machinery, from every corrugated roof, from every shed, knotted jumbles of pipes sprouted like tumorous growths. An obstacle course of shadows. The place gave me the creeps.
Closer to the hanger, a sphere the size of an apartment building nested atop a network of support beams. It too sprouted pipes, which in turn sprouted smaller pipes. A tiny staircase spiraled up the side, dwarfed by the tank’s bulk.
“That?” I croaked.
“Mm-mm,” said Sarah. “Liquid oxygen.”
Lightheaded all of a sudden, I paused to catch my breath and gather my strength. Rest . . . I needed rest. If I could just lie down for five minutes . . .
Nuh-uh. No way, Leona. Once I lay down, it was over. I wasn’t getting back up.
I licked my lips, running my chalky tongue across hard, scabbed skin . . . and tasted blood. The blisters had cracked open, and my saliva left a lingering burn.
When the vertigo passed, I dragged the bike around and slogged toward the north side of the complex.
“Did I fall asleep?” said Sarah.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Why?”
“It was . . . weird dream.”
I continued into the shadow of the open-air hanger, and little by little, its cavernous interior came into view.
So did the tip of a white fin.
I trudged on, growing more curious. The fin grew larger, and beneath it appeared three jet black exhaust nozzles, each the size of a car.
The hanger contained a spacecraft.
Slowly my eyes adjusted, then all at once the full sweep of a delta wing materialized against the deeper black inside the hanger. I inhaled sharply, taking in the vehicle’s open cargo bay, its black nose and underbelly, the name printed just behind the forward-facing bay of windows.
Space Shuttle Endeavour.
So this was where it was. They’d taken it out of a museum, overhauled it, and now they were readying it for launch. They were going to send it into space again.
Maybe they were sending help after all.
I wasn’t here for the Endeavour.
Reluctantly, I tore my eyes off the Space Shuttle and wheeled Sarah past the hanger. Beyond the launch platform, another spherical tank stood out against the hillside. Has to be.
“Is that it?” I asked, raising my arm.
“Uh-uh. That’s liquid nitrogen.”
“So . . . where is it?” I slumped against the handlebars, chest heaving, too exhausted to carry on.
Maybe if I could just lie down . . .
“There,” she said, pointing to the left. I followed her finger.
Not twenty feet from where I stood, the ground ended. Beyond the cliff—I crept closer—at the bottom of what looked like a manmade canyon, the dome of a third spherical tank rose into view. This one had been reinforced with huge steel flanges. Circling it was an arena of satellite dishes, antennae, all manner of scientific instruments, every last one aimed at its center.
Dwarfed at its base, a pair of tanker trucks fed into aluminized tubes—the same trucks I’d seen in the picture of the South Carolina crater. They’d arrived via a tunnel in the cliff face, which I guessed emerged somewhere clear of the complex.
Underground . . . so they could bury it if things went wrong.
So this was where they were collecting it.
My gaze slid back to the Endeavour, and I felt my eyebrows pinch together.
Dark matter plus a spaceship. What did that give you?
I couldn’t summon an answer from the fog in my brain. Too tired. It gave you something, though. I knew that.
I hauled the bike to the edge and peered down at the dark matter tank, our wormhole back to Earth.
Enclosed in a tubular cage, a steep metal staircase descended the canyon wall to the bottom. I’d have to carry Sarah down.
My thighs burned at the thought.
“Just . . . just give me a minute.” I rubbed my gummy eyes, took a deep breath, braced myself for this final push. We’d already come so far. It’s just a few stairs . . .
“Leave me here,” Sarah whispered.
“Shh, don’t talk like that.”
“You actually have a reason to live.”
“Stop it,” I said. “We’re both getting out of here.”
“It wants to eat the rest of my soul. Once it eats the rest, it can create a body.”
“Come on. Time to go.” I looped my arms under her armpits and dragged her out of the trailer, pulling her arm around my shoulder. Even sagging against me, she could barely stand. I could barely stand.
Together, we hobbled down the stairs, each step a leap of faith. My rubbery legs trembled under our combined weight, and the clang of metal echoed through the canyon. I cringed at the sound.
If there was anything else lurking about, it would know we were here.
“I am Dark,” Sarah’s silky voice whispered against my ear, raising the tiny hairs on end.
“Shut up,” I said.
We hit the next step hard, and my knee buckled. Sarah’s weight crushed me to the stairs, and we toppled head over heel, shrieking and banging against metal until we crashed in a dogpile of bruised limbs at the bottom of the landing.
Gritting my teeth, I climbed shakily to my feet and hoisted her back up, and we limped down the next flight.
“Sarah?” My voice wavered.
“Went blank there for a moment . . .” she slurred.
At last, we reached the bottom, and stumbled past a series of blast doors set into the cliff. The sphere reared up before us, an impenetrable wall of steel.
“How do we get inside?”
“Hatch . . . on the top . . . my guess.” Her head lulled against mine.
My eyes froze on the precarious staircase spiraling up the side, and my heart sank. More stairs. And these we had to climb. I wanted to cry.
No choice.
“Come on,” I said, lugging her around the tanker truck cabs to the first rung. I planted my heel on the grated metal and pushed, twisting a knife in my sore thigh muscles.
“One step . . . at a time,” I gasped, heaving us up the next riser.
After three steps, I had to stop and catch my breath.
“S-s-so thirsty,” Sarah stuttered, shivering.
“Almost there,” I rasped. “Almost home . . . AAARGH!” I powered us up the next stair, then collapsed, panting, against the handrail. “There’s a whole bathtub of Gatorade waiting for us on the other side.”
“No, there’s not.”
I wrapped my arm tighter around her back, noticing a dampness seeping through the hoodie. Her sores. I shuddered to think of the condition of her skin underneath the clothes.
“We can have anything we want,” I said, striving for a distraction as I heaved us up another few steps. “An Oreo milkshake, a double cheeseburger with bacon and avocado, apple pie à la Mode, barbecue chicken pizza from California Pizza Kitchen. They’re getting it ready for us right now. What do you want?”
“I want my soul back,” she whimpered.
I bit my lip and hoisted us up the next step. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
After an eternity—and by some miracle—we reached the top. Sure enough, a service hatch operated by a wheel accessed the tank’s interior. I seized the wheel and tugged, forearms straining, until it twisted under my palms. I heaved it open, ba
nging it against the top of the sphere, and peered inside. A hole dropped off into inky blackness, the rungs of a ladder just hinted at in the starlight.
“I think there’s another hatch a few feet down. I’ll open it.”
“Dark is here,” she whispered, moving her finger in a slow circle along the tank’s shell.
I ignored her and dropped down into a six-foot space, landing like a cat on another hatch. Bracing my feet on both sides, I twisted this one open too. The seal began to hiss, and I jerked back, alarmed. The hiss grew louder, and the hatch let out a loud groan, like metal bending under immense pressure . . . about to blow.
I clambered out of the hole and fled across the top of the sphere. Just in time. The hatch blew behind me—a crack like a gunshot—and a blast of air thumped into my chest and slammed me backward, knocked the wind out of me, popped my ears. Instantly, a howling gust ripped at the roots of my hair as it was sucked into the tank.
The chamber equalized pressure with a booming roar, a soul-shattering echo. In the aftermath the metal thudded and vibrated under me, rattling my bones.
“Negative pressure,” Sarah explained.
“Could have . . . told me that . . . sooner,” I wheezed, struggling to take tiny sips of air.
“Dark wanted to see what would happen.”
“You’re not Dark,” I screamed. Or tried to scream. Only a raspy croak came out.
Lungs heaving, I crawled back to the hatch and peered down into the tank’s interior. Below the second hatch, another ladder plunged into pitch black.
“Fuck,” I whispered. How was I supposed to get down a ladder carrying Sarah?
I withdrew my body and found her staring wide-eyed at something in the distance, choking on her breaths. I followed her gaze to the stairway we’d descended into the canyon.
A faint clang came from that direction.
“It’s an echo,” I said, squeezing her arm and helping her over to the hole, but my hands quivered. Little twinges of panic. It’s an echo, Leona. “We’re going to climb down a ladder now, okay? Do you think you can climb down a ladder?”
Her terrified gaze drifted back to the stairway.
Not going to work.
I scanned our surroundings, biting my lip. The sphere sloped away. A railing jutted up before it got steep, lined with electrical boxes, control levers . . . a fire hose on a reel.
The fire hose.
I dashed to the reel and began unspooling it, tied the end in a loop, dragged the whole thing several times around the railing, and wiggled it under Sarah’s thighs. Then I guided her fingers around the hose.
“Squeeze,” I ordered.
She squeezed. I dumped her off the edge. She dropped a few feet down the hole before the hose snapped taut and she jerked to a stop, swinging back and forth in midair. I let out more of the hose, and she jerked down a few more feet. I unrolled it faster, feeding a steady supply of hose, and a minute later, the line went slack. She’d hit bottom.
I threw a final, wary glance toward the stairwell—nothing there, Leona—and followed her down on the ladder, sealing the hatch behind me.
Pitch black engulfed me.
Groping for the rungs, I lowered myself deeper into the darkness, my breath scratching at my dry throat. We’re going home!
We were so close I could practically taste it.
On Earth, this very space contained dark matter. Probably thousands of gallons of it. The thought gave me a deep sense of unease, but I hardly cared at this point. All we had to do was let dark matter fuse to our skin on this end, and then we could step out on that end.
My foot hit solid ground, and I probed around until my hands touched Sarah’s shivering body.
“You’re c-c-crazy,” she said.
“Maybe I am.” I followed her collar bone to the vial around her neck and worked my fingernails into the tiny cork, but hesitated, a worry forming. I’d used up some of it last night, and now only a drop remained. “Is there enough for both of us?”
Once I put it on her, she would become invisible, and then untouchable, and then she would be gone . . . taking the dark matter with her.
Leaving me with nothing.
“If we’re t-t-touching,” she said. “It should . . . spread over both of us . . . form a single wormhole.”
Well, duh. Or I could just divide it between us. From what I remembered, dark matter increased in volume as it fused around something.
I wiggled the cork out a millimeter.
“It’s a trap!” Sarah cried suddenly.
I paused, blinked into the darkness. “What?”
“I’m inside its mind right now . . . it’s inside mine . . . it’s a trap.” She stirred and tried to sit up, agitated. “It’s here . . . it’s an ambush.”
Her words processed slowly. Too slowly.
A faint screech sounded above me. I lifted my gaze, just as a dim circle of light opened in the ceiling five stories above us—the hatch—briefly revealing a humanoid silhouette before it slithered into the tank. The hatch slammed shut, echoing into the pitch blackness.
My breath caught in my throat.
It’s in here with us.
Darkness.
Utter quiet.
Crouching over Sarah, my body stayed rigid as a plank, not moving an inch, not breathing . . . listening. My heartbeat boomed in the silence, thumps so loud they seemed to rattle my rib cage.
I heard other noises.
The tank’s metal shell groaned and pinged, still adjusting to the increased pressure. The sphere’s acoustics tricked my ear, swallowing some sounds, amplifying others, so one second it sounded like Sarah was gasping right in my ear, the next like she was whimpering across the room. Just a trick of the acoustics.
Underneath it all, the cavernous darkness itself seemed to be breathing, circling, closing in.
The creature.
I let go of the vial, shifted slightly. My joints cracked like a whip.
“Leona?” she whispered.
“I’m here,” I said, finding her hand again, squeezing it.
“I think humanity’s about to go extinct.”
“Yeah, I kind of think so too—”
A slow hiss brushed the base of my scalp, sending a shiver down my back. I spun around, gaped into the darkness. Nothing there.
Suddenly, it swooshed in front of me, blasting my hair back and raising goosebumps all along my arms. I squeezed Sarah’s hand harder and shuffled to stay between her and the creature that wanted her soul, shielding her body with mine.
The creature attacked right through me.
I felt it pass through my body, felt a terrifying cold pool deep inside me, before Sarah’s hand was ripped from my grip and her bloodcurdling screams were yanked upward. Fifty feet up, the hatch banged open, and her screams faded into the night.
“Sarah!” I flung myself to the ladder.
My palms closed on the rungs, and I scrambled up, driven by pure adrenaline. But already I knew she was lost.
This time, it would devour every last bit of her.
I clambered through the hatch and sprawled out on the top of the sphere, dragged myself to my feet, trying not to think about her grisly fate . . . or mine, since I was certainly next. Down at the base of the tank, her writhing body twisted through the dirt as the shadow loped away on all fours, dragging her behind it.
“Sarah . . .” I lunged for the stairs and flew down them, taking them four at a time. My weary legs gave out at the bottom, and I tripped down the last few steps and slammed into the tanker cab. Peeling away, I sprinted after the trail her body had left in the dirt.
The trail led to one of the blast doors in the side of the cliff, now open to reveal a black tunnel plunging into the earth. I slowed as a prickly f
ear rose in my throat. Follow it in there . . .
Something in the dirt caught my eye.
Sarah’s leather necklace—the vial still attached—torn from her neck.
The dark matter.
I stared at it, hesitating. Just grab it and go. Forget Sarah. That’s your ticket out of here—
“I’m not leaving her,” I hissed.
No one will ever know, Leona.
Sarah’s scream ripped through my thoughts, coming from beyond the blast door. Somehow, she managed to speak through tortured sobs. “Leona . . . go back, don’t come in here!”
I wavered at the threshold, foot poised in midair. Just go back.
She was telling me to go back.
“Go back, take the dark matter . . . save yourself—” Her words cut off to the vicious sound of chewing.
The sound froze my blood, and something in me snapped. “I’m not leaving you!” I cried, and I stepped over the threshold into the tunnel.
Not like last time.
The blast door slammed shut behind me, startling me. Typical.
“Get away from her,” I screamed, advancing into the tunnel toward the sound of her whimpering, arms extended. A hint of light came from a staircase ahead, illuminating a hallway lined with doors, which looked oddly familiar.
“Sarah?” I climbed the stairs, emerging into a kitchen—also vaguely familiar. A kitchen? Even more weird, the kitchen had windows, real windows, with starlight filtering in through the cracks.
Weren’t we underground?
I nudged aside the blinds and peered out at a sloping driveway. In the driveway sat an empty plastic cistern, and next to it, a machine that looked like the one Sarah had built. My throat clamped in panic.
“No,” I breathed.
I ran back down the stairs and heaved open the blast door. On the other side, stairs led up to a rectangle of starry sky. I stumbled up them, scarcely able to draw air. When I emerged at the top, I felt my world fall out from underneath me.
I stood not at the foot of a sixty-foot spherical tank, but in a residential backyard.