“Are you okay?” asked Vom.
“I thought you said you weren’t a puppy.”
“Aren’t you glad I lied?”
Roaring, the hedgehog threw itself into Vom.
Diana, along with half the customers, found herself trapped by the grappling horrors cutting off the exit. She didn’t know what anyone else observed, but she saw a giant hedgehog with a thick, rubbery skin wrestling a fuzzy green puppet. The scene put Diana in mind of a Scooby-Doo episode. Except the villains were exactly what they appeared to be, and people were going to get hurt.
Vom took a bite out of his opponent, inflicting a gushing wound. A purple splotch jumped off the hedgehog’s back and enlarged into a duplicate of the original. The new creature turned and charged at Diana.
Yelping, she threw her hands up to defend herself. A chill ran down her arms, and invisible forces catapulted the monster through the ceiling. She felt a little woozy after te effort. She definitely needed to get the hang of these new superpowers.
The hedgehog spawned two more duplicates. All three piled on Vom.
Wendall took her by the hand and pulled her out the door. Outside the restaurant she stopped him from dragging her any farther. The roars and shrieks coming from within were terrifying and bizarre. The struggle shook the street and cracked the building.
“We have to get out of here,” said Wendall.
It was the smart thing to do, but it felt wrong. She’d left Vom to be mauled to death. Although she wasn’t certain that he could die. He was ancient, and it was hard to imagine that a savage beating could destroy him. But the hedgehog was also some kind of monster, so maybe that was an exception.
She couldn’t do anything about it. Her own magic powers were so new and unfamiliar that she didn’t have the faintest idea how to help Vom, even if she had been sure it was the right thing to do.
A terrific howl rocked the earth. She was knocked off her feet. Dust obscured her vision as Wendall’s shadowy figure offered her a hand. She took it, and a sharp pain ran down her spine.
It wasn’t Wendall. It was the hedgehog. She pulled away, but his grip was unbreakable. He seized her by the throat.
Wendall came out of the dust and threw a sloppy punch that connected with the monster’s shoulder. The monster didn’t move, but it was a noble effort. She’d written off Wendall too soon. At least he’d tried when he could’ve run away. Too bad she was going to die anyway.
Or not. She wasn’t able to breathe but didn’t seem to need to. The monster wasn’t hurting her. It didn’t really seem to want to, either. It threw her down to the ground, and a quizzical expression crossed its face. It was confused, frightened.
Thunder cracked from the restaurant as a hedgehog duplicate smashed through its façade, bounced off the street, and nearly struck Diana and her attacker. Another boom followed as a second hedgehog hurtled outward, digging a trench in the pavement and coming to a stop a few feet to their left.
Vom exited the building through its shattered front door. He made a show of wiping his hands with big grins.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I think so.” She rubbed her throat. The skin was a little raw, but it wasn’t a serious injury.
The hedgehog tilted its head at a curious angle and stepped toward her.
“It’s okay,” she said in a soothing voice. “Everything will be fine now.”
The beast’s face contorted into a snarl, and it lunged at her. Instincts kicked in. Since flight had failed her, she resorted to fight. Diana unleashed a haymaker under the monster’s chin. Its head exploded in a burst of green and black. The body took several steps backward before collapsing.
“Holy crap,” she said. “I didn’t mean to… it was an accident. I wasn’t trying to—”
“He’s not dead,” said Vom.
Vom picked up the mushy purple body and started to eat it. It was a gruesome show as one unspeakable thing devoured another in the space of a half a minute.
He belched.
“Excuse me.”
The pedestrians stood in shock at what they’d just witnessed. They weren’t ready for a world gone mad filled with horrible monsters and exploding heads.
Several hedgehog beasts waddled beside Vom.
“You didn’t have to hit me so hard,” said one.
“Sorry about that,” replied Diana. Only a moment later she was unsure of why she was apologizing.
“Diana, you know these things?” asked Wendall.
“I can explain,” Diana lied. “It’s not as crazy as it looks.”
No, it was crazier. She couldn’t explain because she didn’t understand much of it herself.
He scrambled away as if she were every bit the horrible beasts beside her.
A whistling sound drew her attention skyward. The hedgehog she’d launched into the atmosphere plummeted downward. Before she could shout a warning it returned to Earth, landing right on Wendall, squashing him into a gooey mess. Or so she assumed. She turned away to avoid seeing all the gory details.
But she couldn’t turn away from the carnage and destruction surrounding her. It was only in comic books that a whole city block could be destroyed without casualties. The ten-story building that housed the bagel shop looked as if it might collapse at any moment.
She was going to be sick.
“What’s with her?” asked a hedgehog beast.
“She’s new to this,” replied Vom.
Vom and the hedgehogs faded away. Diana was still adjusting to this strange perspective on reality, so she wasn’t able to see what happened. She sensed the ripples as the cosmos readjusted itself, but was aware of it only after it was over. She sat in the restored bagel shop. Everything was back to normal, returned to the state just before the monster attack.
“Wendall,” she said. “You’re alive.”
He hesitated. She wondered if he remembered any of it. If anyone here did. There was an awkward quiet in the shop, and indeed the entire block, as the remnants of unacceptable memories faded.
Maybe it was all her imagination. Maybe Vom and the hedgehog were all just figments of her own deranged mind. It seemed more sensible to believe she was insane than that she was living in a universe filledwith monsters that no one else saw.
Diana considered Wendall sitting before her. She never would’ve thought it, but he’d proven himself to be a good guy. And even if it was only in her imagination, she still thought he deserved a chance to prove it.
“Wendall, I’d love to go to the movies with you,” she said.
“Yeah… about that,” he stammered. “I’m pretty busy the next few weeks, but I’ll check my schedule and get back to you.”
She reached for his hand, but he recoiled.
“I have to get going,” he said, “but I’ll see you later, I’m sure.”
He ran out the door without a backward glance. He was in such a hurry he steamrolled over an old lady.
He remembered, and he wasn’t the only one. Nobody was looking at her. More than that. They were deliberately not looking at her. She had become something else to be ignored. Like the crumbs of rubble littering the floor or the spiderweb of cracks running through the shop window or the miniature hedgehog clone skittering across the floor. Bits and pieces of a not-quite-undone reality.
Diana’s head hurt. The world was both too bright and not bright enough. Everything smelled funny. Her bagel tasted weird. The air blown by the ceiling fan scraped against her skin. She was aware of everything now, and everything seemed alien and unpleasant.
She threw away her bagel, dumped out her coffee, and walked out of the shop into a strange universe she could no longer call home.
CHAPTER SIX
The farther Diana walked, the more alien the universe around her became. She noticed more and more oddities. Like a tenstory building that floated a few feet above the ground. Or a dog with a human face being walked by a human with a dog face. Or the swelling and contraction of the pavement under her feet in a n
early imperceptible way, as if it were built on the back of a giant, slumbering monster.
That was what was so maddening. She couldn’t rule out any possibilities now. She’d never been a contemplative soul. Like most people, she had usually been too busy living her day-today life to dwell on deeper mysteries that she was certain she’d never understand anyway. She had just taken most things on faith and trusted that someone would figure it out.
Now she’d discovered the human race was little more than a mass of microbes squirming on a thin slice of reality they foolishly labeled “the universe.” The revelation that there was nothing special about humanity didn’t shock her. Not specifically. She’d always been cynical about that sort of thing. The idea that reality was all too big to even quantify in any meaningful way didn’t disturb her much either. Except, deep down, she’d assumed there was some inherent logic at work. Like ricocheting molecules congealing into planets and stars, dogs and cats. At least that made sense, even if it w’t very comforting. At least it put things in neat little boxes with neat little labels that she didn’t always understand but could rely on in terms of familiarity.
Too bad it had all turned out to be bullshit.
Instead she found herself in a world where everything was possible, without a mental filing cabinet into which she could collate her perceptions. Everything was one giant heap, too big to be swept under the rug, too noisy to shut the door on.
Too much imagination had never been a concern for Diana, but with her new perceptions a switch had been flipped. She envisioned the universe as being run by tremendous, godlike butterflies looking down on their creation and debating whether it was shiny enough to keep or whether they should just throw it away and start again. She pictured everything as a dream. Her dream. A never-ending fantasy that would start all over once she died. Over and over again. Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe she was just a phantom in someone else’s fantasy world. Hell, she might have been a robot for all she knew.
Every possibility, no matter how disturbing, inconceivable, or downright stupid seemed feasible now. She cursed every single Twilight Zone episode she’d seen for planting the seeds of schizophrenia in her brain. Although it wasn’t technically mental illness if you were more aware, your sense of reality more expanded. Or maybe it was. Maybe all this was just her addled mind snapping, and she was just alert enough to realize it. She wondered whether you could be crazy and know it at the same time. Then she got pissed when she realized any answer she reached would be suspect by its very nature.
Diana mumbled to herself, targeting the first object for her annoyance that came to mind. “Screw you, Rod Serling.”
She paused, stopping before her apartment building. She hadn’t meant to come back here. She’d merely been walking without paying attention.
But here she was.
There was something comforting about the place. Something terrifying. Most terrifying was how comforting she found it. Like she belonged here now.
She entered the building, and everything suddenly felt better. The world outside was a strange, monstrous realm. The world inside was just as strange. So why did she find it less bizarre, less jarring?
The door to West’s apartment opened, and he stuck his head out. “Hey, Number Five. Can you bring me that package on the stoop?”
Having just passed the stoop, she hadn’t noticed a package. A glance over her shoulder showed a box wrapped in brown paper sitting behind her. She couldn’t have entered without tripping over it.
“Hurry it up, Number Five,” said West.
When Diana turned to pick up the package, it had disappeared. She walked back to the open apartment door and said, “It’s gone.”
“Better not be,” replied West with a snort.
From her vantage point the package was back in iplace. She walked toward it, each step taken with care and deliberation. With each step the package became lighter and lighter until it was transparent—then, just when she was within reach, it faded away. She walked back down the hallway, and when she reached West’s door the package was back.
He swaggered over to her. “Well, where is it?”
“It keeps disappearing.”
“Are you thinking about something else when you reach for it?”
“Something else?”
West’s heavy eyebrows furrowed. “You can’t think about picking up the package while you’re picking up the package. It’ll hear you coming that way.”
She nodded, more to herself than to him. “Maybe it’d be easier if you just got it yourself.”
He frowned. “That’s no good. It knows me too well. Can smell me from a mile away.”
So could she, but she refrained from suggesting a bath might be in order.
“If you don’t get that package, every living thing in Barcelona is going to die,” said West.
She believed him. Not just because she was in a state of mind to believe anything and everything, but because he said it so matter-of-factly, as if commenting on an annoying weather prediction. Oh, darn, the picnic is going to be ruined. Fiddledee-dee.
He vanished into his darkened apartment.
Diana decided that if she could save everyone in Barcelona, then at least she could say she’d done something worthwhile with her life. She moved toward the package.
It vanished.
Damn. It was onto her.
West’s voice came from the darkness. “Three minutes.”
“I’m working on it,” she called back.
“Well, it’s no problem. Not like anyone of any great importance is in Barcelona or anything. Not like the entire future of the human race hinges on the fate of one Spanish city.”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. West’s delivery was flat, and her gauge of reality was hardly reliable.
She stuck her hands in her pockets, whistled a jaunty tune, and sauntered toward the package. She attempted to occupy her mind with thoughts of turtles and jelly doughnuts. Why turtles and jelly doughnuts? She didn’t have a clue. Just the first two things that popped into her head. Out of all the things in her expanding universe, she questioned what these two objects said about her. It wasn’t that they were bad. It was just that they seemed an odd pairing, two things that didn’t go together. And she wondered what it said about her perceptions and logic that these were the two things that sprang to her mind as if they were the most natural combination in the world.
“Aha!”
Diana pounced on the package. It vibrated in her hands as if trying to vanish, but she held tight. Her distracting thoughts had worked. Almost too well, as she must’ve wasted a good minute or two standing beside the package before grabbing it, but she had it now.
“Nineteen seconds,” called West.
She ran in and handed him the paper-wrapped box. He took it and set it on a shelf beside several other identical boxes.
“Hummph,” said West. “Didn’t think you’d make it.”
She said, “So what about Barcelona?”
“What about it?”
“Is it going to be okay?”
“Should hold for another day or two,” replied West.
He shuffled over to an overstuffed couch and collapsed into it. “Something I can do for you, Number Five?”
She realized she was standing in West’s apartment, a shadowy realm in perpetual twilight. The décor, what she could see of it, was straight out of the seventies. The brightest thing in the room was a unusually large lava lamp that cast a greenish glow. The wax inside swirled in strange patterns. If she squinted just right, she thought she saw an eye floating somewhere within, and it glared at her.
A black-light octopus poster squirmed on the wall. It twisted and distorted like one of those bad motion-imitation pictures won as Cracker Jack prizes. And West’s couch swayed as if on board a boat, even though all the other furniture stayed put.
Yet the weirdness of this apartment was somehow less foreign and unsettling than the real world (whatever that meant) out
side this building’s front door.
“What’s in the package?” she asked.
“There’s nothing in the package, Number Five.”
West jumped to his feet and marched forward.
“There’s nothing in any of the packages if they know what’s good for them.”
Most of the boxes hopped deeper into the shelf recesses. One leaned forward, challenging West.
“Oh, someone’s got an attitude, does he?” West’s voice rose. Not much. But enough to be noticed, which in itself was surprising enough to unsettle Diana. “Someone thinks he’s too good for the shelf, does he?”
The package growled.
“You’ll stay formless, and you’ll like it,” said West. “Just remember that once you take on flesh, it means you’ll have an ass for me to kick.”
West stared down the package.
“Well, I can see you’re b,” said Diana. “I’ll just leave you to… uh… taunt the boxes.”
She was a few steps out of the apartment and down the hall when West spoke up.
“It will get easier,” said West.
His face, covered by hair, was as unreadable as his voice, but she thought she saw his thick mustache twitch with the traces of a smile.
“The period of adjustment varies from individual to individual,” he said, “but it always gets better. One way or another.”
“One way or another?”
“Oh, you know. Crossword puzzles. Pornography. Video games. Knitting. Madness. Death. We all find a way of coping, Number Five.”
His dark eyes focused on a point on a distant horizon. He chuckled through a tight, closed mouth. Then an awkward silence, at least as far as Diana was concerned, passed between them. She suspected West didn’t even notice.
“Uh… thanks,” she said.
Something crashed inside his apartment. Grumbling, he went back to deal with the problem. She hoped Barcelona or Paris or whatever else would be okay, but it wasn’t her problem anymore. Her problem was waiting in her apartment.
And he was not alone.
Vom the Hungering sat on the sofa. The green-furred monster had something stuck in his mouth. His cheek bulged. She wondered if it was a whole pig or a small child and decided she’d rather not know.
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