Dark Tomorrows, Second Edition

by Amanda Hocking; Joel Arnold; J. L. Bryan; Michael Crane; S. W. Benefiel; Daniel Pyle; Robert J. Duperre; Vicki Keire

  Jack put his mug on the table. “Do you—”

  Marian’s mug hit the floor and exploded. Hot coffee splashed across her bare feet and Jack’s slippers, but she didn’t react.

  She looked at Jack.

  Except that wasn’t right. She wasn’t looking at him but rather through him. Like someone in a trance.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Is—”

  “Proceed to the nearest pod and await further instructions,” she said. Her voice was cold, monotone, robotic.

  “What?”

  Instead of responding, she stood up, stepped over the pool of steaming coffee, and walked out of the kitchen.

  Jack pushed himself out of his chair, wondering if this was supposed to be some kind of joke. He followed her into the hall and out of the apartment. When she didn’t close the door, he reached back and did it for her.

  “Hold on a second,” he said. “I—”

  He stopped.

  The hall was full of people. They walked slowly but purposefully toward the elevator. Some of them were fully dressed and wearing shoes. Others were shoeless, or shirtless, or entirely naked. Jack recognized most of their faces but didn’t know any of their names.

  One nude man, overweight and dripping wet, walked toward the congregation at the elevator clutching a towel but not attempting to cover himself with it. When the man reached the crowd, he bumped into an elderly woman in a bathrobe. Instead of apologizing and moving back, he stood right there, pressed up against her, his groin inches from her liver-spotted fingers. Neither of them seemed to notice or care. They stared at the elevator doors and waited. Along with everyone else. Along with Marian.

  Jack caught up to Marian, grabbed her shoulder, gave her a little shake.

  “Hey,” he said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  She said nothing.

  He circled around her, snapped his long fingers in her face, and considered slapping her, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do that. Instead, he turned to the crowd and said, “Hello?”

  Blank faces. Zombie eyes.

  “Can anybody hear what I’m saying?”

  Silence.

  The elevator doors opened, and the people filed in. The first ones through the doors formed a row at the back, and the next bunch moved right up against them, leaving themselves no personal space, sardining themselves in.

  Jack grabbed Marian’s arm and tried to hold her back, but she pulled out of his grasp and followed the rest of their neighbors into the elevator.

  He wouldn’t have thought the bunch of them could all fit in at once, but they made it work. Arms flopped over shoulders, faces pressed against backs, unclothed body parts rubbed indecently against one another.

  Jack didn’t want to follow them in, wanted to back away from this insanity and try to find some help. But how was he supposed to do that? He had no access to the rest of the world. He supposed he could have taken the stairs down, but this was the 23rd floor. Climbing down that many flights would have taken forever. He didn’t want to let Marian out of his sight. Although he barely knew her, hadn’t even really known her name until a few minutes ago, he had a strong urge to make sure she was okay, to keep her safe.

  The elevator doors started to close. He cursed, slipped through the closing gap, and wedged himself into the wall of bodies. As uncomfortable as it was, this seemed to be the only way to find answers quickly.

  The doors clapped shut, and the elevator dropped. The ride was quick—less than five seconds to descend 23 stories—but he thought it was the most uncomfortable few moments of his life. Although he could barely turn his head, couldn’t see more than a couple of the other passengers, he sensed the dozens of glossy eyes pointed his way. Someone had shifted behind him, and his or her hand pressed against Jack’s ass, lodged between his cheeks. Jack tried to shift away from the groper but couldn’t. He settled for clenching.

  When the doors opened onto the lobby, Jack stumbled off the elevator and out of the way of the surging crowd. They spilled through the doors and into the lobby, joining the mob of people who had already made it to the ground floor, heading for the front doors and the street beyond. There were two other elevators in the building, but Jack didn’t think even three of the things could have carried this many people down so quickly; some of the people must have taken the stairs.

  Even as he thought this, the door to the nearest stairwell opened and a pair of young children stepped through. The girl held a stuffed giraffe, and the boy had what looked like peanut butter and jelly smeared around his mouth. They didn’t look scared or worried. They didn’t look anything. Their faces were as blank and lifeless as everyone else’s.

  They disappeared into the crowd.

  There were other children too. Some of them only a few years old, some of them actually crawling across the floor. Jack was sure these smallest kids would be trampled, but the crowd parted around them, shuffling rather than stampeding.

  Jack looked around, found Marian, pushed his way over to her, and grabbed her hand.

  “Hey,” he said, doubting she would respond but wanting to try again anyway.

  She said nothing.

  The congregation funneled through the exit. There was no sound but the slapping, sliding, and clapping of their feet.

  And then, outside, something rumbled down the street. Jack didn’t get a good look at it—couldn’t see past the the bobbing heads and swaying bodies—but it seemed big, metallic.

  He shook Marian again, tucked her hair behind her ear and put his mouth right up against her head.

  “Marian,” he said. “Wake up. I don’t know what’s going on here. You need to snap out of it.”

  No response.

  He held on to her hand and followed her to the doors. Maybe there would be other people he could talk to outside. Others who were immune to this…whatever it was.

  Outside, a row of steel ships hovered above the street. He had to squint his eyes against the sunlight reflecting off their hulls. He looked left and right, saw ships all the way to the horizon in either direction. They swayed through the air, engines rumbling, each the size of a bus. The nearest one spun, bobbed in the air for a second, and then lowered a ramp to the street. The approaching people hurried aboard, packing themselves in just as his neighbors had packed themselves into the elevator.

  Crowds of people exited every building in sight. Men, women, children. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. The city street teemed.

  He looked around for anyone else who seemed to be aware of what was happening. At first, everyone appeared to be heading for the ships, saying nothing, swirling toward the ramps and the open hatches like water toward a drain. But then he saw black uniforms weaving through the crowd, moving against the current.

  Policemen? Soldiers? Their uniforms were blank, without any kind of insignia. They wore thick boots that came all the way to their knees and even thicker gloves up to their elbows. Their helmets sported long riot masks on the front. Jack couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t determine their nationality, could only guess at their gender.

  One of the burlier black-suits approached an older man who seemed to be having trouble walking. The old guy dropped to his knees, and the soldier—Jack guessed that was as good a word as any—grabbed his shoulder to keep him from falling on his face.

  Jack started to pull away from Marian, to walk toward the soldier, to see if he could get some answers.

  But then the soldier drew a gun, pressed the barrel against the old man’s forehead, and with no hesitation whatsoever, pulled the trigger.

  In the unnaturally quiet street, the gunshot sounded like an exploding bomb. Brains and bits of skull sprayed across the crowd behind the old man. The people didn’t react. Even when the gore dripped down their faces and into some of their open mouths.

  Jack’s good ear rang, and he held back a scream. Barely.

  The soldier picked up the old man’s corpse, flung it over his shoulder, and turned away. Before he disa
ppeared into the crowd, Jack noticed the symbol embossed on the back of his uniform. He thought he had seen it before, thought it looked a little bit like…a logo.

  He shook his head, stared toward the spot in the crowd where the soldier had disappeared, looked at Marian, shook his head again. What was he supposed to do? He wanted to run away but thought he should stay put, wanted to scream but knew he should be quiet. His stomach churned, threatening to hock out his breakfast. Blood-drenched, emotionless people who might as well have been walking mannequins shuffled across the mess on the ground where the old man had kneeled, and Jack finally had to look away, a hand over his mouth.

  In the street, the crowd filled the last few vacant spaces in the ship, standing side to side, front to back, staring blankly ahead. He tried to remember what Marian had said just before this whole mess started. Something about a pod? And awaiting instructions? He thought that was it, or close enough, but what did it mean? Were these transport ships? And if so, where were they taking everyone? Was this war?

  The ship’s hatch slid shut. The upper half was made of thick glass, like a giant window. He saw the crowd in there. Some of the children were just barely visible above the window’s bottom edge. He guessed there were others he couldn’t see at all.

  Where are you going? Jack thought.

  The ship’s engines revved, but it didn’t retract its ramp, and it didn’t move.

  The engines got louder still. Then, suddenly, the loading chamber and all the people in it, burst into flames.

  Jack couldn’t breathe. His heart beat furiously.

  The people in this ship slipped out of their trances. They screamed and beat against the window with their blackened, flaming hands.

  The ship’s engines revved again, and the flames got brighter, and then the screaming stopped. A plume of black smoke drifted up from the top of the ship and into the sky.

  Up and down the street, more pillars of smoke rose from the other ships, converging in the air, forming a gray cloud of ash between the buildings.

  Ahead, the nearest ship’s door slid open, revealing a black, smoking cavity like a fresh meteor crater. The fire had destroyed every bit of flesh, consumed every bone and artificial implant. The only remnants of the cremated citizens were the layer of charcoal on the chamber walls and the ash floating overhead.

  Even before the hatch slid entirely open, a new wave of people marched up the ramp and through the doorway.

  Jack tried to scream, to tell them to stop, that they were going to die. But his mouth wouldn’t form the words and his lungs wouldn’t squeeze out the air he needed to voice them.

  He saw more soldiers weaving through the crowd, heard half a dozen more gunshots, and realized his failing body had probably saved his life. At least temporarily. If he’d screamed, they’d have found him and killed him. No doubt about it.

  He leaned toward Marian.

  “Please wake up,” he said. “Please.”

  She didn’t. Of course not. Instead, she pulled away and took a few steps toward the ship. The pod.

  No. The death chamber.

  Jack didn’t guess he had a choice. If he couldn’t save everyone, he could at least try to save her. He bent down, wrapped his arms around Marian’s waist, and lifted her over his shoulder. She didn’t fight him, didn’t try to pull out of his grasp, but she did keep kicking her legs, as if she thought she was still walking. Her bare feet beat against his upper thigh. Left, right, left, right.

  He ducked down, trying to stay out of sight, and hurried through the crowd as quickly as he could. No one moved out of his way, but they didn’t try to stop him either. He hefted Marian and panted. She wasn’t all that heavy, but she was practically dead weight, and he wasn’t exactly in the best shape of his life.

  He heard more gunshots, but they were distant, maybe a block up the street. No one screamed at him to stop. No one fired a bullet over his head. By the time he got back to the door of their building, he thought he’d made it unseen.

  Then he spotted the pair of soldiers looking his way. They moved, pushing bystanders out of the way, and Jack rushed inside.

  The lobby had emptied. He put Marian down on the floor and found the security locks at the top and bottom of the entrance. The locks wouldn’t hold the soldiers forever—maybe not even for very long—but they were better than nothing.

  Marian walked toward the closed doors, bumped into them, pressed the handle. When the doors didn’t open, she turned and walked alongside them, maybe looking for another way out.

  Jack took a deep breath, grabbed her again, and hoisted her over his shoulder. He looked at the elevators. No good. Whatever was going on here, whoever the enemy was, they seemed to have complete control over the population. Maybe they could control the building too. He didn’t want to risk it. He and Marian would be easy targets in the elevator.

  That left the stairs, but those didn’t seem like much of an option either. He was huffing just standing here; he doubted he’d be able to carry Marian up more than a flight or two. And he wasn’t going to leave her here alone.

  What then?

  He noticed the door to the security office behind the front desk. Someone had left it ajar. It wasn’t exactly an escape, but there was a chance there might be weapons inside. He didn’t think he remembered the building security guards ever carrying guns, but maybe they had some kind of emergency kit. Stun guns or mace at least. He had to check. It beat standing there in the lobby and waiting to die.

  He peeked through the front doors. The soldiers had nearly made it to the building. He had no more than a few seconds to get away.

  Wrapping his arms more tightly around Marian, he scurried toward the desk. He got around it and into the office before the soldiers reached the entryway. He put Marian down, pushed the office door shut, locked it, and sucked in a long breath.

  Boom! Boom!

  The gunshots echoed through the lobby, almost drowning out the sound of the tinkling glass.

  Heavy boots crunched shattered glass and moved across the foyer. Quick, rhythmic slaps.

  The soldiers passed the office. Jack heard them open the stairwell door. At least one of them began to climb. With all the echoes out there, he couldn’t tell for sure whether they’d both gone up or one had stayed behind. He’d have to assume there was still someone out there.

  Marian pushed past Jack and tried to open the door. He grabbed her hand and had to pull it back with so much force he was afraid he’d break her wrist.

  What was wrong with her? With everyone? How had the enemy (whoever they were) gotten all those people to stroll to their deaths like a bunch of idiot lemmings?

  And then he knew.

  He’d been an idiot for not making the connection sooner. To be fair, he supposed he was really only working with half a mind. Any other time, he’d have run the probabilities, double checked his logic. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d solved a problem—even a simple one—using nothing but his brain. Maybe he never had.

  The chips.

  His malfunctioning chip was the only thing he could think of that set him apart from everyone else. The chips weren’t mind-control devices—or at least they weren’t supposed to be—but he didn’t see what other explanation there could be.

  The office had a small desk facing a row of fuzzy, holographic projections. Most of them displayed empty hallways, but two showed different angles of the scene outside. Jack watched another chamber full of people disintegrate within a blazing fireball and turned away from the projections.

  He unplugged an extension cord beneath the desk and used it to tie Marian to the desk’s threadbare swivel chair.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s for your own good.”

  She stared through him and said nothing.

  He searched the desk drawers and found a pair of scissors.

  He opened the scissors, ran his thumb along one of the blades, and eyed Marian.

  What if you’re wrong? he thought.

  He wasn�
��t.

  But what if you are? You’re not seriously thinking about cutting her open are you?

  He was. He didn’t know what else to do. If he didn’t take out her chip, she’d just keep trying to get away, to get to those floating crematoriums.

  He knelt beside her and cupped his hand over her mouth. He didn’t think she’d scream—didn’t think she could scream in her current state—but she might, and if there was still a soldier in the lobby, he didn’t want to give away their position.

  After he felt around for the chip, he gripped the scissors as tightly as he could, pressed his index finger against the back of one of the blades, and touched the tip to the skin just behind her ear. The blade drew a drop of blood. He swallowed a lump and cut.

  He made one vertical incision and two horizontal ones, creating a flap. Blood dripped down her neck, but it didn’t gush. He opened the flap of skin and exposed the chip beneath. He hadn’t cut perfectly around it, had accidentally left one edge still tucked beneath her flesh, but he thought he could get it out if he was careful. He used the scissors like pliers, gripped one of the chip’s exposed edges, and pulled slowly. The chip came far enough out for him to grip it with those dexterous, pianist’s fingers. It was slick with blood, but he managed to get hold of it and pull. There was some resistance at first, but then the chip came free, trailing a single wire and a coil of rubber tubing.

  Marian’s head slumped forward, and the chair tipped over.

  She hit the ground with a solid thud, and although he probably should have been worried someone in the lobby might have heard the sound, all Jack could think of was her. He dropped the chip and used the scissors to cut the extension cord. He pulled the chair away and rolled her onto her back.

  She wasn’t breathing.

  “No!” The word came out like the high-pitched cry of a small child.

  Jack pressed his ear against her chest.

  No heartbeat.

  “No,” he said again. More forcefully this time.

  He tilted her head back, pinched her nose shut. He hadn’t been trained in CPR, but he’d seen it done. He had to try. He couldn’t just let her die.