by Bryan Smith
With the exception of one still in-progress darts game in the other room, the Villager’s interior was perfectly quiet for several long moments.
Until Mickey Shepherd said, “It’s a trick.”
Emily turned to look at him. She felt numb all over, as if she’d been pumped full of anesthetic or some powerfully narcotic drug. She blinked slowly at Mickey. “What?”
He nodded. “A trick. Special effects.” He looked up and down the bar, searching the frightened faces there for signs of agreement. Then he looked at Emily again. “A goddamn practical joke, that’s what that was.”
A Vandy student who’d taken the seat vacated by Aaron said, “No way. That was real.” There was a look of hopeless terror on his barely post-adolescent face. “Oh, Jesus, what the hell was that?”
Emily shook her head. She still felt numb. She wanted to believe Mickey. “I don’t know. I…don’t know.”
She glanced again at the television. The image of the fumbling reporter was gone.
In its place was a test pattern.
She flipped through the channels. All of them. Except for some cable channels, the same pattern was in place on most. On others was the symbol of the Emergency Alert System.
Somebody said, “Holy shit. It’s the end of the goddamn world.”
Emily felt woozy.
She scanned the horrified, disbelieving faces arrayed around the other side of the bar. “This is an open bar now.” Her voice sounded distant to her own ears, like the dimly perceived sound of a neighbor’s television. “Help yourselves. I need to sit down.”
She eased herself to the floor behind the bar and folded her legs beneath her. A conversational din arose as the Villager’s patrons argued about what they’d seen. Emily tuned it out, reduced it to a wave of incoherent babble. She thought of the vial of Valiums at the bottom of her purse and decided she’d take one of them in a little while. Then the image of the thick, dark tentacle emerging through the black fissure in that wall filled her mind and she decided two Valiums might be an even better idea.
* * *
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
7:45 p.m.
The 911 operator was still squawking in her ear, but Jasmine Holtz wasn’t really hearing him anymore. She returned the phone to its cradle and walked back to where the very still body of her husband lay sprawled in front of the television. She knelt beside him and stroked his graying brown hair. A tear emerged from the corner of one eye and slid slowly down her cheek.
She sniffled and wiped the tear away.
“Oh, Gary.” Another sniffle, this one just a hair’s breadth away from becoming a wrenching sob. “I always told you to watch your goddamn cholesterol better…”
She grimaced.
What a stupid thing to say to her dead husband. High cholesterol wasn’t the real culprit here. Perhaps it played a minor, contributing role, but the real truth was that Gary Holtz had died of fright.
He’d been standing in front of the living room television, watching in horror as the president’s speech was interrupted by something inexplicable. Then, at the same moment the president’s spine snapped, Gary said something that sounded like, “Oh,” and pitched head-first to the floor. Jasmine then lost her mind for a little while, screaming, wailing, shaking Gary’s still body, begging him to get up. But he was already gone. She managed to get herself together and call 911. Paramedics would be arriving soon. But she knew with cold certainty there was nothing they could do.
Her sweet husband was gone, and she was alone in the world. She reflected briefly on how cruel and unfair life was, then ceased thinking about it, at least for now. It was something she already knew too well.
She stroked Gary’s hair some more. “Why you, sweetie? Why not me?”
But she thought she knew the answer to that question.
Gary had been terrified by what he’d seen, so completely overwhelmed that a crucial part of his body just revolted. Jasmine had been frightened, too, of course, but she had not been surprised. Not so soon after the episode with the diseased flower. She hadn’t told him about that. How could she? It would’ve sounded like the ravings of a crazy person. But now she wished she’d opened her stupid mouth and talked about it.
Maybe this wouldn’t have happened.
How could she not blame herself? Yet Gary would tell her she was being stupid, that she was doing that reflexive second-guessing thing all people in mourning do. Oh, what a good man he’d been. He would so hate to know she was feeling any guilt at all.
She lay down beside him, wrapped her arms around him, kissed his still warm forehead, his mouth, and his cheek. “My sweet, sweet man. Oh, Gary…”
She cried some more.
When the paramedics hammered on the front door a few minutes later, she disengaged herself from that final, bittersweet embrace and got up to let them in.
CHAPTER TWO
Somewhere in the U.S.A.…
Laura Brandner emerged from the front entrance of the coffee shop where she’d worked as a barista for going on three years. She immediately fired up a cigarette and sucked in a deep lungful of death. Yes, she knew full well the smoke filling her lungs was laced with all sorts of dreadful poisons. She also knew she didn’t care. Not too much anyway. She was still very young at twenty-four. Things like cancer and emphysema were things she associated with old age. And the way things were going these days it didn’t look like anybody was gonna be getting much older.
She’d smoked her first post-work cigarette almost down to the filter by the time she became aware of the little girl watching her from the street curb. She smiled as she lit a second cigarette, and the little girl smiled back and waved shyly, a winningly demure look crossing her delicate features. Her hair was a lustrous sheath of finely-combed brown that hung halfway down her back, and she was dressed in the uniform of a schoolgirl.
Laura blew a cloud of smoke at the dark sky and smiled again. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
The girl giggled. She clasped her hands behind her back and kicked at an invisible pebble on the sidewalk. “I’m Abby.”
Laura nodded, as if affirming something she’d known all along—but she’d never seen the little girl before. “Pleased to meet you, Abby. I’m Laura.” She gave a sideways nod at the coffee shop. “Are you waiting on your Mommy? Is she inside here?”
Abby shook her head. “Nope.”
Laura frowned. “There someone else you’re waiting for?”
Abby smiled. “Yes. You.”
Laura’s frown deepened. “I’m…sorry. I don’t understand.”
The girl moved away from the curb now, coming toward her in an unhurried way, with her hands still clasped behind her back. Her smile was still in place, but it seemed somehow less sweet and innocent. But that was absurd. She was just a little girl, and as completely non-threatening as any normal child.
Abby laughed. “I’ve been waiting for you.” Her brow furrowed slightly and she pursed her lip. And her eyes rolled briefly upward as she appeared to think something over. Then her gaze fixed on Laura again. “Yes. I’m your…niece.”
Laura’s first instinct was to scoff at the girl’s patently false statement. This was a joke. Had to be. The girl just had a lively imagination and was playing a game of make-believe while she waited for…well, whoever. And she meant to say something to that effect. But something happened.
She blinked hard and stared in confusion at the girl for a moment.
Then she smiled tentatively. “You’re my niece.”
Laura almost laughed. What a silly thing to say.
Of course Abby was her niece.
She frowned again. “What were we just talking about?”
Abby giggled. “You were just saying how tired you were from working all day.” She yawned and stretched her arms wide. “You should take me home now.” The girl leaned closer to her, stared into her eyes with an intensity that should have been disconcerting but wasn’t. And Abby suddenly smiled brightly again. “Kelly
will worry if we don’t get home soon. Besides, you’ve been wanting to fuck her all day. It’s all you’ve been able to think about.”
Laura gaped at the girl. “Abby, that’s not…”
She blinked again and everything went fuzzy for a moment. She felt something hot burning her fingers and saw that her second cigarette had burned down nearly to the filter. She flicked the filter and attached length of unsmoked ash away, jammed her fingers into her mouth, and looked at Abby. Abby, who was still smiling at her in an oddly disconnected way, like a scientist studying a specimen.
She eased her hand away from her mouth. “Wha…what happened?”
Abby shrugged. “Nothing. You’re just tired.”
Laura nodded. “Yeah.”
Abby extended a slim, pale hand and Laura numbly, automatically took it. The girl gave her a gentle squeeze and the pain departed her singed fingers in an instant, and so completely it was as if they’d never been burned in the first place.
Abby locked gazes with her again. “Home.”
Laura swallowed a thick lump in her throat. She felt unaccountably nervous. Which didn’t make sense. They were on a brightly-lit street in a nice part of town with lots of people around. There was nothing to be afraid of.
Abby nodded. “Nothing at all.”
Laura managed a weak, uncertain smile. “Nothing.”
Abby giggled.
Then, still clasping hands, they set off in the direction of Laura’s apartment.
CHAPTER THREE
The day after the president died was a day of chaos. The secret protected so fervently by those in power was a secret no longer. Though the American government’s initial, panicked instinct was to clamp down, this proved impossible. An effort was made to shut down all normal modes of disseminating information, especially television. The suddenly ascendant vice-president didn’t want horrific images of the president’s demise playing endlessly on every channel. In the ensuing hours and days, the word ‘Orwellian’ was thrown around a good bit.
However, the power of the internet quickly rendered the vice-president’s efforts meaningless. Video files of the president’s death were posted online within minutes and were downloaded by the millions. The nation’s internet service providers took over the role normally played by networks and cable news channels, posting ‘live’ updates with furious frequency. Recognizing at last the futility of attempting to suppress all media in the digital age, the government’s iron-fisted tactics were abandoned. And so the flurry of furious speculation began in earnest. Concepts such as alternate dimensions and rips in the time-space continuum, once strictly the province of science fiction, were discussed seriously by men and women whose knowledge of things scientific wasn’t much broader than that of the average tapeworm.
Word soon went out that the vice-president, due to be sworn in as president within moments, would speak to the nation before the night was out. It was said he would speak of the things the late president had been set to reveal earlier in the evening. It was a long night for most of the country. The vice-president’s speech aired at 12:45 a.m., Central Standard Time. The man was a good decade and a half younger than the late president, and he looked as bewildered by events as the hundreds of millions of people watching him around the world.
It should come as no surprise to hear that nothing the man said reassured or comforted anyone.
* * *
Newark, NJ
September 26
10:07 a.m.
Warren’s eyes fluttered open. He looked at the bedside clock and was astonished to see he had a remote chance of making it to his Contemporary European Literature class. It was entirely within the realm of possibility that he could get up, throw some clothes on, drive to school, and dash across campus fast enough to arrive in class right at 10:30.
But it wasn’t going to happen. Warren sighed. Just thinking about running made him tired. The actual physical act would probably kill him.
He groaned into his pillow and said, “I am so pathetic it fucking hurts.”
A true statement, Warren had to admit. And he doubted anyone he knew would argue with it. It was depressing. Here he had a chance to begin a turnaround in his life. Showing up for this one class could be just the thing to snap him out of this near-terminal state of melancholy. It could be the beginning of a chain reaction of good fortune, the first necessary baby step in leaving the past and all its baggage behind forever.
But he just wasn’t up to it.
Which, come to think of it, made for a pretty apt metaphor for his whole life.
He didn’t want to think about it anymore, not now anyway, and so he closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. The world and its unpleasant realities began to slip away and he entered a dream realm far more pleasant than his drab life in Newark. He sat shirtless on a beautiful, flower-covered hill in some shiny, faraway place. It reminded him vaguely of the countryside in Tennessee. He smiled and turned his eyes up to the sun. He felt good. He felt clean. His body finally purged of the toxins he’d fed it for so long. This was a glimpse of a better future. A healthier, happier time than the present. Then he heard a familiar voice calling to him.
He frowned and said, “Emily?”
Then there was a louder, more insistent sound and his eyes snapped open. The beautiful, idyllic hill was gone and he was once more face-down on his bed in Newark. The jarring sound came again and he realized someone was pounding on his door.
“All right, already!” He sighed heavily. “Jesus.”
He got out of bed, stepped into his jeans, and pulled on a Ramones t-shirt. He shuffled over to the door and pulled it open.
He grunted. “What are you doing here?”
Amanda Lawrence pushed past him into the apartment. She was thin and naturally blonde, her hair cut in a longish pageboy style. She was wearing a purple v-neck t-shirt and red corduroy pants. In one hand she held a rolled-up newspaper. Warren was wary of the newspaper. She was in a state of high agitation. He wouldn’t put it past her to start whipping him about the head with it.
She looked livid as she stepped closer to him. “Where the fuck have you been?”
Warren threw the door shut and moved over to the refrigerator. “What’s it to you? You broke up with me yesterday. By the way, fuck you.”
“Don’t walk away from me, asshole. And don’t talk to me like that.”
Warren grabbed a bottle of Yoohoo from the fridge and closed it. He showed Amanda a disbelieving scowl. “You’re too much. Really. You break up with me via a gag-inducing cutesy letter and you’re giving me attitude?” He shook his head. “Jesus.”
Some of the fight went out of her then. Her shoulders sagged. But she didn’t avert her gaze. She unfolded the newspaper and held it up so Warren could see the huge headline that took up most of the front page: PRESIDENT DEAD.
Warren dropped his Yoohoo. “Holy shit.”
Amanda shook her head. “You didn’t know.” A statement, not a question. “The leader of the freaking free world dies on live television and you’re oblivious as usual.”
Warren blinked. He didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then he took the newspaper from Amanda and walked over to the bed. He sat down and read the first paragraphs of the most surreal news story he’d ever seen. He stopped reading midway through the story and looked up at Amanda, who was standing over him with her arms folded beneath her breasts, looking as stern as any out-of-patience school marm or prison warden.
“Is this a gag? Is this a joke newspaper you had a friend print up?”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “You paranoid freak.” She walked over to the small television propped atop a stack of plastic milk crates and turned it on. A fuzzy image of VNC anchor Zeke Johnson appeared. “Watch.”
Warren’s gaze settled on the screen. He forgot his anger at Amanda for a moment and focused on what the talking heads were saying. After a while Amanda switched the channel to Fox News and then to CNN. Everywhere it was more of the same. She switched
stations again, then again, enough times to get her point across. Even fluffball channels like MTV and ESPN had essentially changed formats, becoming twenty-four hour news outlets.
Finally he could watch no more of it. He went to the television and turned it off. “I feel like I must be dreaming. This is insane.”
Amanda smirked. “Join the club.”
He rubbed his eyes, then blinked hard and focused on Amanda. “So I missed the story of the ages Okay. I still don’t know why you’re here.”
“Where else would I go?” Her expression hardened and she seized a handful of his t-shirt. “My family’s a thousand miles away, Warren. I haven’t been here long enough to make any other friends. You’re all I’ve got.”
“But you broke up with me.”
“Consider us reconciled.”
Warren laughed. “That’s crazy.”
Amanda relinquished her hold on his t-shirt and sat down on the bed. He opened his mouth intending to tell her off some more, but he saw that her shoulders were shaking and his feelings toward her began to soften. He sighed and sat down next to her, draping an arm around her shoulders in time to hold her steady as the first of many powerful sobs wracked her body. He held her close, stroked her hair, and made shushing noises, uttered words of reassurance that bordered on nonsensical.
By the time she was calm enough to talk to him again the front of his t-shirt was soaked with her tears. He grabbed a Kleenex from a box on the nightstand and handed it to her. She sniffled and blew her nose with shaking hands. She looked at him and managed a weak smile. “Thank you.”
Warren shrugged. “Listen, if you need me with you for this, I can go along with that. It’s not like there’s anything else worth salvaging in my life.” He laughed humorlessly. “Hell, I finally have a legit reason to ditch school.”
Amanda made a sour sound somewhere between a laugh and a sniffle. “Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.” She snuggled closer to him and planted a lingering kiss on his mouth. “I never should’ve written that note anyway. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m so sorry.”