Out of the Box 7 - Sea Change

by Robert J. Crane

  “Don’t do that!” Kat said, shouting at him like she was warning a child away from a hot stove. “Her skin!” He did not look up. “If you touch it, it’ll—”

  Steven’s head snapped up, and she shut her mouth at the mere look on his face. It would have been enough to silence someone more forceful than her; anguish and fear rolled into one with more emotions lurking beneath the surface. It was pain, pure pain, of a sort that she recognized even at this distance, and it told her what he was going to say a second before he spoke, before he delivered the knife right to her soul.

  “She’s not breathing,” he said, voice numb with shock. “She’s … she’s dead.”

  36.

  Karl

  The train crash was pure pleasure: the sound rattling off the walls of the tight tunnel, the screaming of metal and the crash—oh, yes, the crash itself—it was pure joy, the best present he’d gotten in years. Karl didn’t really think of happiness as an achievable possibility for himself at this point, but the sound of the wreck was as close as he could recall feeling it in so very, very long.

  When it came crashing through, smashing aside the debris that his bomb—carefully left in the strata just between the tunnel and the bottom of the lakebed—had dropped into the subway, the train had jumped up and hit the remainder of the ceiling. It had been coming kind of fast out of the station, but not nearly fast enough. It hadn’t been exactly the kind of high-speed impact he’d hoped for, and when it came to rest, he was standing right in the middle of the first car, buried up to his chest in the floor.

  The air in the car was damp, the mist pouring in from somewhere above—he still wasn’t sure what was going on up there, but that damned idiot Scott Byerly was responsible somehow, that much he knew. The train had lost a few windows, and the white clouds were coming in, giving the wreck a dark, moody atmosphere as the mist caught the reflection of the flashing red emergency lighting. The sound of water tapping against the roof was unmistakable.

  “What … happened?” A woman asked from a few feet away. She sounded dazed.

  Karl was standing with his hands parted, no part of him solid except for the bottoms of his feet, which hurt agonizingly from where he’d been shot. He’d clearly left too much of himself exposed, and that shitty actor had shot him for the mistake. His face throbbed where Sienna Nealon had smashed his nose and eyebrow, and he could taste blood mingling with the mist coming into the train car. “You wrecked,” he said simply.

  The woman blinked at him in surprise, taking him in, all of him, from the waist up. “Are … are you all right?”

  Karl looked right at her and smiled as he reached for his phone. “I’m fine.”

  She looked around as though she were just waking up. Down the seat from her, a mother held her child tight to her chest, praying under her breath. Karl couldn’t hear the language being used, but the intent was clear. There were probably twelve people scattered around the car, minor scrapes, little injuries. Survivors with a story to tell of a harrowing experience.

  “But this is so …” Karl lost the words, unsure of what he wanted to say. “Placid? Disappointing?”

  “We’re all alive,” the woman said, staring at him, clearly not putting together what she was seeing with regard to his chest sticking out of the flooring. “We should be thankful.” She looked around, her dark hair almost black in the flashing red light. “Is everyone else okay?”

  “There should be horror,” Karl said, thinking it through out loud. “Revulsion. Fear. We need to turn up the volume.”

  “What?” The woman fixated on him, her eyes narrowed in the dark like she was trying to see him. “Did you hit your head?” She staggered to her feet, unsteady, like a baby horse, the floor tilted at an angle. She came over and peered at him, realizing for the first time that his body just ended at the floor. “What …?”

  Karl pushed the button to start recording on his phone, then turned on the flashlight so that it lit her up. “We’re on the wreckage of the train outside MacArthur Park Station,” he said calmly, narrating. “Everyone survived, thank goodness.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” the woman asked, kneeling down next to him. “Your torso, it’s—”

  Karl shone the light right in her eyes and watched her flinch away from the brightness. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Amanda,” she said, peering through the light at him. “Listen, it’s going to be okay. We’ll get EMTs down here to take a look at you, they’re probably already on their way—”

  “Goodbye, Amanda,” Karl said, and he buried his free hand in the side of her head and then turned it solid. When he pulled it out, half her face came with it. What was left sagged as though he’d cast a palsy upon it, and he caught it perfectly on the little 5" by 3" screen clutched in his hand.

  There was time for a quiet breath before the screaming started, and Karl enjoyed it. Once the screams did start, once the fear spread, the panic, it was like caged animals with no way out. They were locked in with him, and no matter how they tried to escape—and some went for the windows, others went for the emergency exits, others just quivered in the corners or played possum—he made sure not one of them survived.

  The whole time, the camera was watching—his own quiet record of human sacrifice.

  37.

  Scott

  The first slap against his cheek was a sharp awakening for Scott, the second was like shit gravy on top of the already rude wake-up. The third hurt like hell, and the fourth was overkill.

  He caught the fifth as it was about to land on his cheek and stared up into dark eyes that were peering out from a black tactical mask of the sort the SWAT teams wore when out in the field about to kick down a door. Scott got the feeling from the eyes staring out at him that the wearer of that mask was a guy who wished he was about to go into action instead of a guy who was standing on the edge of a concrete walkway ringing a lake, slapping him in the face.

  “Knock it off,” Scott snapped, his head aching only slightly less than his cheek. He threw Guy Friday’s hand away, and the bigger man let him. “I’m awake.”

  “You don’t come out of it so easily,” Guy Friday said, pulling up to his full height and leering down at Scott. “I bet you need a loud alarm clock for a wakeup.”

  “I don’t think I was sleeping,” Scott said, uncomfortably aware that he was awfully close to the edge of the lake. “I think I passed out.” He turned over slowly, the world around him shrouded in a fog, the sun hidden somewhere overhead, a yellow sphere barely visible in the thick atmosphere. He braced on his knees and stared down into the gaping hole below—

  “Holy shit,” he muttered.

  The wreckage of a train lay exposed in the gash at the bottom of the lakebed. Its roof showed some signs of folding, of scraping damage, like it had hit something hard enough to pop it up into the ceiling of the tunnel.

  Also, the lake was gone. Entirely.

  Scott put a hand to his head, the pain a tangible thing. “How long was I out?”

  “A minute or two,” Guy Friday answered in that deep, rough voice. It was nothing like the one that had been speaking to him when he’d been pushing the lake from liquid to gas. “You were talking to yourself for a long time before that, though, ranting to the air and waving your hands around. Your face was so red you’d think someone had hacked your nude selfie collection.”

  “But they didn’t, did they?” he deadpanned, pushing up onto his hands. He stared down at the train below, and the sound of shifting metal reached his ears, ever so faintly. “Any sign of Sienna? Kat?”

  “No on the first,” Guy Friday said, looming over him, “and I haven’t seen the blond chick since she fell in.”

  “Oh, shit,” Scott said, getting to his knees. Red and blue lights were flashing in the distance, sirens screaming. “I really drained the whole lake.”

  “Yeah,” Guy Friday said, and Scott stayed on his knees, staring out at the wet mud that remained on the bed of the lake. “I wo
uldn’t have called that one, personally, you know, first thing this morning. If someone had come up to me and been like, ‘What do you think is going to happen today?’ I would have probably answered—‘Naked photos of the blond girl.’ Like that would be the most extreme outcome to today I could have envisioned.”

  “What is it with you and naked pictures?” Scott asked, not ready to get to his feet yet.

  “Does seem to be a theme at the moment, doesn’t it?” Guy Friday mused. “Must be on my mind for some reason.”

  “Really?” Scott wondered aloud, staring over the empty lakebed and down at the wreck of the train below. It was like a little reminder that beneath all that was going on was another layer, something he’d caught a glimpse of in the vision of himself when he was clearing the lake. “Because my mind … is not anywhere near that at the moment.” He pressed his lips together tightly, wondering if Sienna and Kat were alive or dead, but powerless to act either way, the energy gone from his limbs. “Not anywhere close to it.”

  38.

  Karl

  Karl cleared three cars in a row before he stopped to rest. It had been messy work, and his hand was drenched in the blood of these people.

  These people he hated.

  They were sheep, they were clueless. They weren’t even people really, they were just going through the motions. It wasn’t even like they were really living; they just weren’t dead until he came along.

  But now he had a record of their deaths. It was the sort of thing that might wake a few kindred spirits up.

  He had settled down to rest on one of the benches in the third car. He could hear movement in the fourth, the sound of survivors who wouldn’t be surviving much longer. He just needed to catch his breath, really, and he could go on about the business at hand—the business of his hand, actually.

  He let a grim smile spread across his face. He hadn’t anticipated this, getting personally involved in this way, on this day, but really, it was perfect. He’d needed to create the frenzy, to make some more noise, and nothing was quite as noisy as killing an entire trainload of people who had just survived a wreck and catching it live on video.

  The air had turned heavy and thick in the train cars, the smell of blood and gore going stale on him. That was all right, though, Karl reflected as he got to his feet. He wiped a bloody handprint on the metal wall and started toward the next car. “Miles to go before I sleep and all that,” he said to himself, still wearing that grim smile, as he went back to work making a name for himself.

  39.

  Kat

  Kat stared down at Steven Clayton’s earnest face in disbelief. If he was a liar, he was worthy of hearing, “And the Oscar for Best Actor goes to …” followed by his name this year and every year until his own death. She stood over him, staring down at Sienna’s pale face—even paler than usual—and looked for a sign of breathing, of the rush of blood, of anything… but there was none.

  “Do something,” she said, not sure exactly who she was speaking to.

  “Isn’t this more your department?” Clayton asked, adjusting Sienna’s motionless form in his arms. His statement was pointed, like he had pointed Sienna’s gun at Kat’s heart and shot her right in it.

  “I … I can’t,” Kat said, shaking her head, not closing her eyes, not daring to look away. “Wha … how … do you think she … did she drown?”

  Steven blinked, as if suddenly recalling something. “Maybe,” he said and pushed her off his lap. Sienna’s head lolled limply, her eyes not quite shut, a crack of white and blue and black showing through the gap. Her lashes were dry and straight, perfect and full and lengthy without a hint of mascara. Kat had to extend hers, because they were blond and faded into nothingness without cosmetic aid.

  “What are you doing?” Kat asked in muted horror as he laid her flat and used a finger to push her mouth open as he tilted her head back.

  “I was a lifeguard at the pool in Sitka in the summers,” he said, all business. “I’m certified to perform CPR.” He put his hands, crossed, on her breastbone. Her black suit jacket was dirty and damp and flopped open. He ignored any impropriety in the placement of his hands as Kat stared, dumbstruck, as he pressed hard down on her chest. A sound came like cracking bones, like Rice Krispies with milk just poured over them, and Kat gasped in disgust. “That’s normal,” he said, but he hesitated before resuming his up and down pushing on her chest. A few more cracking sounds followed, but fewer each time. After several pushes, he paused for a second, took a deep breath, and seemed to steel himself. “Okay, here goes.” And he plunged his face down to hers, pressing his lips against Sienna’s, breathing into her mouth.

  Kat watched, still stunned, not even sure what she could do, what she needed to do. The whole scene was playing out with a distance between them like it was happening on TV or a movie screen. It was almost like she’d come to the premiere of a new and unseen Steven Clayton movie at Grauman’s; here he was, a hero for the ages, stepping up to save the life of some derelict who’d drowned in a storm gutter. The atmosphere in the tunnel was just the right combination of seedy and claustrophobic to set the scene for a dark tragedy.

  Except it wasn’t a scene, it wasn’t a movie, it wasn’t on a screen at a theater and she wasn’t dressed for a premiere, soaked from head to toe and wearing no dress or shoes, her bloodied feet torn from hard running on the concrete as she stood watching Steven Clayton perform CPR on Sienna Nealon.

  It was here.

  It was happening, right before her eyes.

  Sienna was dead.

  “You can’t be dead,” Kat breathed.

  Steven was resuming his attacks on Sienna’s already-broken breastbone and ribs after another round of invasively shoving his lips against hers, but he stopped long enough to weigh in. “Well, she is,” he snapped, “and she’s going to stay that way unless either you or I can bring her back.”

  Kat stood back. Seven times, she counted, he jerked as he pushed down on her chest, before he stopped and dove down again. It looked almost he was kissing her, kneeling to deliver the waking kiss to Sleeping Beauty, a Prince Charming nearly any woman would kill to have giving his attention to her in this way. And someone had died, had been killed, in order to get his attention in this way, hadn’t they? That was ironic, even to Kat, watching in her stunned state, her mind not even fully processing what she was seeing before her.

  You can’t be dead, she thought. You faced Wolfe and Aleksandr, beat Omega assassins and vampires, fought a man who could control the flow of time itself and killed the strongest meta on the planet.

  You can’t be dead.

  Nothing can kill you.

  You were supposed to live … longer than anyone.

  I was supposed to fear you for the rest of my life.

  The tunnel’s cold air chilled Kat through the water still beaded on her skin. The sun’s light seemed miles away, though it was probably only twenty or thirty feet to the surface. She could feel the roots of trees above her, somewhere, the near-dead grass hiding behind the concrete-lined tunnel ceiling. She felt much the same, dormant in the face of what was happening, a drought of emotions that deadened her inside.

  You were practically going to live forever. I was always going to have to look over my shoulder for you. That’s why you came, wasn’t it? I haven’t forgotten, Sienna. I never forgot, though you thought I didn’t know. I know, though. I know how you looked at me …

  But you can’t be dead.

  Steven was pressing again, and Kat had lost track of how many times he’d administered the hard shoves to her chest. That was what they looked like; like he meant to press her into the earth, shove her through the concrete floor like she was as insubstantial as Redbeard. Her body jerked faintly with the motion, with the force, but her face stayed pale, her breath did not come, and Sienna’s body was still in the silence of the subway tunnel, as though it had been laid to rest in a tomb.

  You can’t be dead.

  “This isn’t working,”
Steven said, after two more hard breaths. He cast a glare at her angrily. “We need help here. Can you …?”

  It was a desperate plea, a question in the air. Her answer came back instinctively. “No.”

  I know what I have to fear from you, Sienna.

  Steven dove back down to work, pushing again, desperately, on her chest. Her neck jerked with the motion, no muscle control to stop her. He swooped down for another breath, another kiss …

  And this time, Prince Charming woke Sleeping Beauty.

  Sienna coughed back to life, her eyes squeezing desperately shut, that half-lidded gaze now closed off completely. She jerked to motion, limbs flailing as she came back to herself. Steven straightened, slumping back on his haunches as she swung an arm around, just missing his face. “It’s okay,” he said, reassuring. “You’re fine.”

  Sienna’s eyes fluttered open, dull, unfocused. “Wha …?”

  “Get Wolfe, Sienna,” Kat said, equally dully.

  “Wolfe …?” Sienna asked, staring into the distance. Her eyes snapped clear in a second, and she sat up like the monster she was, come back to life. “Oh … gahh …” She brought a hand up and laid it on her forehead, covering half her face. “What just happened?”

  “You died,” Steven said. “Drowned, I think—”

  “No,” Sienna said, shaking her head. “Electrocuted. Water on the third rail.”

  “Oh,” Steven said. “Explains the lack of spitting up water when I performed CPR.”

  Sienna froze, hand that had been pushing hair out from in her face. “You … did what?”

  “I brought you back,” he said, leaning closer to her. “How do you feel?”

  “Not like I just died,” she said, pulling her hand away to reveal a suspicious look. “At least, not anymore.”

  “Because of Wolfe,” Kat said softly, the answer coming to her so naturally.

  “Where’s Redbeard?” Sienna asked, already getting to her feet.