The Complete Four-Book Box Set

by Brian Spangler

  While Richard ate more of the carrot candy, Janice began to explain, but when her eyes settled on the small pouch, she realized that something else might be easier. Pulling on the torn strand of fabric, she untied the pouch, opened the bag, and poured out the puzzle pieces. As she spread them around in front of Richard, his chewing stopped, and his eyes moved from piece to piece. Janice began to move the pieces, pushing the puzzle into place—with occasional help from Richard, who’d become interested in seeing the final composition. Within a minute, they’d loosely collected the pieces into a shape that was similar to what it had looked like before James had torn the odd parchment apart.

  What Janice found missing was a reaction from Richard: clearly he’d seen something like this before. When he started chewing again, and poked a finger at the strange parchment, she noticed that his hands had steadied. His finger still wavered in the air with uncertain direction, but there was improvement.

  The sugar is working, she thought when he raised a piece of carrot candy toward her and offered a thankful grin.

  “I know this parchment,” he told her. “It’s an index card. Where did you get this one?”

  “’Index card’? And what do you mean by ‘this one’?” She’d never considered that there might be more.

  “Sandra, my wife, brought one home. She called it an index card. The one she brought home had rows of numbers on it. Something to do with the VAC Machines, and…” He started to say more, but then paused, as if reluctant to finish. “I think the index cards have something to do with the End of Gray Skies, too.”

  “Do you still have it?” Janice asked, but Richard stayed quiet. He picked up the puzzle piece that was stained with James’s blood, and flipped it in his fingers as he studied it.

  “Declan has it. He took it with him when he left the Commune,” Richard answered, and then surprised Janice with what he said next. “I’m going after him. I’ve been planning it for a while now. But, well, like I said, I’ll quit tomorrow. Declan wants to find out why the End of Gray Skies failed. But I think the index cards are dangerous,” he added, and then looked up at Janice. “Where did you say this came from?”

  “My chosen. He jumped from the executive floors, but before he jumped, he tore the index card and threw the pieces over the ledge.”

  “Who?”

  “His name was James Sundref,” she answered. “He’s dead now.”

  “Good! He deserves to be dead.” Richard spoke flatly, and without emotion.

  Again the slap across her face came, but this time, it wasn’t from the cursing words of a former student; it came at her hard, cutting into her heart and paining her deeply.

  “Why… why would you say something like that?”

  A long pause came before he answered.

  “Because he killed my wife and little girl.”

  Janice could only shake her head. Her mind was filled with disbelief, as she thought of her chosen possibly being responsible for the death of a wife and mother, a child and student.

  “No,” she said, and dipped her face into her hands, swiping at her eyes. “There’s no way he could be responsible.”

  A spark of anger shone in Richard’s face as his eyes darted to the puzzle pieces and then back to Janice. She understood what he was thinking, what he was connecting; fear came to her next.

  “Did you say he was your chosen? The man who killed my wife and little girl?”

  Janice tried to stop crying, but the accusation was more than she could bear. She nodded, and waited to see what Richard would do. Her tears slowed when she saw his expression: it scared her. Maybe he was vengeful, and he’d kill her. Maybe he’d only hurt her. She closed her eyes and waited, but nothing came.

  Her breathing stuttered once before settling, and she added, “But we broke our bond twenty years ago. His cleaning and passing is done. The pieces of the index card were brought to me.” She motioned to the puzzle pieces. “That’s all that is left of him.”

  She watched Richard throw the bloodied puzzle piece from his hand, as though it were burning his fingers, like a red-hot heating stone.

  “I’m sorry that you lost your chosen,” he said in a voice that held sincere compassion. “I am sorry. But I firmly believe that what I said is true. I’m leaving the Commune; I’m going to find Declan, and bring him home. My wife and little girl died because of what was on that index card. I’d have stopped Declan from going, too, if I would’ve known that he’d take the one that Sandra had brought into our dwelling.”

  As Richard spoke, his hands quivered, his upper lip trembled, and his brow had begun to sweat. The withdrawals were coming on stronger, and it was just a matter of time before he’d seize.

  Give the monster a sip, just a sip. Janice pulled his cup from in front of him, sliding it through the cluster of strewn puzzle pieces, and poured him a drink. He said nothing as he brought the cup to his lips; he only nodded once, before sipping off the top. Closing his eyes he threw back what remained in his cup, filling his mouth until his cheeks bulged out, where he let the juice rest a moment before swallowing.

  “I’m going with you,” Janice announced, and could hardly believe her own words. Richard sat up, shaking his head, but he held his tongue, unwilling to give up the last drops. “I’m going with you to the VAC Machine. I’ve been in the classroom for twenty years, and it’s time for a field trip. If James had something to do with Sandra and Hadley’s death, then I want to know about it. And if the index cards have something to do with the End of Gray Skies, then we owe it to the Commune to find out what that something is.”

  11

  Stranded eyes. Declan struggled to understand the distant and vacant stare of those who walked by him. Although his passage through the corridor from their room was not at all the scary travel he’d made it out to be, the blank faces of the men and women made the passage unnerving.

  What surprised him was the freedom to travel. Even when bumping into a person or two, it seemed that he was free to move about the VAC Machine. Gripping Sammi’s lock of hair, he wondered how much of his freedom was due to the fact that he was carrying a piece of her with him.

  “I’ll always carry it,” he reminded himself.

  Bodies, bodies, bodies, he thought, trying to hide from the empty gazes of flat, stony eyes. Their occasional glances raised his suspicions. The corridor was busy with people traveling the long stretch of doors, all wearing the same white coveralls, which made them indistinguishable from one another. He thought of how similar the scene was to his Commune, save for the dead eyes. Some of the faces he knew, but they moved along without acknowledging him. Declan had also known them to be dead—or at least he’d thought they’d died.

  As Declan watched the stream of white coveralls passing him, he thought of Sammi and was struck by what had been missing. Declan gripped her lock of hair, opening his hand briefly to look at it, and thought of the last time she’d worn it.

  He’d undressed her that day, so that she could be cleaned and passed to the farming floor. It was Ms. Gilly who’d raised the concern about the missing lock of hair. He had held it tightly in his hand, much as he was doing now. Sammi had given it to him; she’d always worn it, and Ms. Gilly knew that about her. But now, wearing a red lock of hair didn’t seem to matter to her anymore. But why didn’t it matter? Glinting iridescence in the passing light, Sammi’s coveralls were the same as any others: expressionless, like the faces in the corridor.

  Marching bodies churned forward—step after step, passing him in a mindless shuffle. He saw no children, no old people, and no crippled or maimed. Instead, he saw an army: a young army. What could they all be working on? Were they a part of the End of Gray Skies? Or was it something else, something that Sammi hadn’t shared with him?

  Everyone was going someplace, needing to be somewhere, but he’d not seen a one of them offer a word, or a smile, or a nod of their head. Even the few he’d accidentally brushed against had only fixed him a cursory look, their eyes level yet indefi
nable, taking in his image before moving on. Occasionally, he’d seen a set of eyes jut upward toward the lights before being pulled back into place.

  He’d seen how the light had affected Sammi, too. He’d watched her go about her day, responding without question to the flashes and colors. She’d never obeyed anyone before—not like that—and never would he have believed a machine would be able to control her.

  It was Sammi’s behavior, more than anything, that most strengthened his suspicions. This place was not what it seemed. The VAC Machine couldn’t be the oasis that Sammi thought it was. And while she was blinded by what the lights told her, he couldn’t share in her blindness; he knew that the sights he’d been shown were false. It was all a façade: the machine was deceiving them, taking their sight, and twisting it into what it wanted them to see.

  Declan jumped, startled by the sudden shift in color sequences. At once, marching bodies changed direction, reacting immediately to the new instructions. And, as in their room, Declan didn’t understand what the lights were saying. He didn’t understand what Sammi was seeing, what everyone else was seeing.

  “This is Sammi now,” he mumbled, and then dropped his chin, continuing to the end of the corridor before closing his eyes. He imagined Sammi walking among the army of bodies, aimlessly following directions.

  The corridor opened into a round area that was hundreds of times the size of the lobby in their building. Bodies passed him; some brushed his shoulders, some jostled him, but all the while, he kept his gaze fixed in front of him. He remembered what he had seen on the shore of the black sand beach: the impressive size of the VAC Machine from the outside. And he understood that the corridor leading away from his room was just a vein—a small one, and likely one of hundreds—designed to empty bodies into, and return them from, this lobby.

  The heart. Is this the heart? he questioned, and then remembered how deep into the ocean the machine went. A heart would be deeper, somewhere safe; where he stood was just an exchange. Like the glassy orb on Andie’s head, it was both his eye and a window. That was what this place was: the top of the machine. He wondered if this was the only such room, or if there were more. On the beach, he’d only seen one face of the VAC Machine. Just how far did it extend on the other side?

  Thousands of white coveralls marched in every direction, seeming to know exactly where to step, and where they were going. The white coveralls connected, blurring together into paths, snaking all around him. There was some level of order being followed within the mass.

  When someone bumped into him, he almost fell back. The bump was hard, and noticeable enough to turn him, but the offending body was already lost in a white iridescent tide that was receding into the corridor. When his other shoulder was hit, the same thing happened, and he soon realized that he was in the way. The paths being walked were predetermined, like the morse lines, and he was standing on one of them. Without thinking about it, Declan turned, apologizing, but the passer only slowed a moment before disappearing behind him.

  The lights had absolute control over these people—down to the very paths they took from one place to the next. Declan moved to the left, shuffling until he felt that he was clear of the unmarked lines the bodies traveled on.

  Declan stretched to see the other side of the lobby. He was going to have to go in farther, deeper toward the center. Stepping forward, he struggled to stay out of the way. After one faulted step, a young woman walked into him, her breasts bouncing against him. He felt a bashful rise of embarrassment and readied himself to apologize, but without a word she moved around him and continued on. Declan wanted to laugh, but when he considered that his family and Sammi were under the same influence, the levity quickly turned somber, sad.

  As he traveled farther, the white iridescence began to sparkle and dance above those passing. He saw more colors than he had before, dancing lights from far above the lobby floor. He followed the sparkling colors upward where the ceiling was all glass. He could see through the machine, pushing past the fallen clouds, breaking the gray ceiling he’d known his entire life. The glass was a magnificent window, peeking into the rich blue that had stayed hidden from him equally as long. His knees went weak when he saw the cusp of the sun’s edge winking back at him, as if to say “you missed me this time, but come back tomorrow.” Just a sliver was all that he saw, peeking in from the shoals of the lobby’s edge, but it was sunlight, and it was beautiful.

  The sky remained blue when the sun passed out of sight, leaving behind what he thought might be the twinkle of an early star. When he came to understand that the sun was going to pass above the lobby every day at precisely the same time, he nodded an absent thank-you to Ms. Gilly, remembering their class about calendars being born from the stars. Until this moment, what he’d learned had just been ghosts trapped in a history lesson.

  “You were right, Ms. Gilly.”

  What Declan saw next turned the heat from the sun into something cold. Across the lobby, not thirty hands from him, stood his sister, Hadley. Her face was expressionless and pale, with stony smudges cradling her eyes; the luster in her beautiful brown hair was gone, replaced by graying; her skin had turned to the same shade as the fallen clouds. Hadley was a ghost, a mere shadow that walked with an absent stare.

  When he called out, she turned without seeing him, and continued forward. He immediately chased after her, knowing that if he didn’t reach her, then he’d lose her to one of the surrounding corridors. He pushed past the bodies around him, shoving one man nearly to the ground. His heart was racing, thumping hard. Bodies were suddenly in front of him, pawing at his arms and holding him. He didn’t let himself believe it was intentional at first, thinking instead that what was happening was just a coincidence. But when someone’s fingers wrapped around his arm, and then another set of hands clamped onto his shoulders, he realized that he was in fact being held.

  Declan struggled against the grip of many, and tried to keep in sight of his sister, knowing he might never see her again. He screamed for her, his voice hoarse, breaking against the strain in his throat. Sweat rose on his neck, and he found himself cursing the hands that held him, but he finally managed to slip free of their grasp. The flashes of lights from the nearest wall told him all that he needed to know: he was being held so that Hadley could get away.

  Before the mass of hands and bodies could regain its hold on him, he bulled through the crowd—his knees high, his steps quick, bodies being pushed around him—and ran to Hadley. Declan felt the crush of fingers under his feet as he stepped on the hands of those who had fallen yet still flailed to grab hold of him. The crunch of someone’s bones sickened him, but he didn’t stop—he just cursed the lights, blaming them for everything that was happening.

  He was closer to Hadley now. She was continuing toward one of the corridors, but had been slowed by approaching bodies. All of them had the same ashen skin, and their hair was colorless and faded. How had he missed that until now?

  Hadley joined one of the lines waiting to enter a corridor, which allowed Declan the chance to catch up. As he came up behind her, he reached out, placed his hand on her shoulder, and turned her.

  The woman who turned back to face him wasn’t Hadley; it was his mother. At once, his heart halted, his breathing stopped. His mother’s beautiful skin had become as pale as his sister’s. Creases stretched around her eyes, etching grooves in her leathery skin. She looked at him then, and for a moment, he thought she was going to say something. But she didn’t see him. She didn’t seem to see anything, but just stared ahead absently, without expression. He reached up to touch her hair, feeling for the soft comfort he’d known when he was growing up. But all he found was a brittle coarseness—an offense to life—dying.

  “What happened to you?” The question was not just for his mother, but for the other corpses that trudged by.

  Surprisingly, his mother spoke. “I’m ready now,” she said as she touched his face. Declan reached up to grab hold of her hand, to pull her into his arms
and take her from this place—but he was too slow, he’d waited too long. A sudden rush of arms came at him like a raging current, drowning the unsuspecting. Hands came down on him, smothering him; their sheer weight ripped him away from his mother. Disbelief flooded his mind.

  This can’t be happening, he thought, and he considered how docile the others had been until now. Above him, the ceiling spewed reflections of the lights, lively and unforgiving, throwing a storm of flashing colors around him. The machine wanted his mother and sister, and it somehow knew that he was going to try to stop them. He screamed at the hands holding him down, while his mother turned away from him.

  This is just a dream, he told himself. A nightmare. But he knew it wasn’t. Hadley was next to him then, meeting his eyes, but seeing past him as he struggled to stand. And then she was gone, following their mother. He kept his eyes on their path, watching them move deeper into the corridor, but more bodies filled the growing space between them, obscuring his view. All wore the same deathly look.

  Declan pushed against the grip of fingers, struggling, yelling. The nightmare of restraint held firm, until his only recourse was to begin swinging. He threw his arms in a wide arc, air casting over his skin as he tried to connect with anything near him. A jolt of pain bolted up his arm when a mouthful of teeth cut into his knuckles, suspending his fingers in numbness. His fist had hit the mouth of an older woman, and immediately her grip on him vanished as she lost her balance and pinwheeled backward. He watched as she stumbled and then rolled, crashing to the floor; he heard the thump of her head as it bounced on the hard ground. Even as he watched her, his other hand connected with a man’s ear, splitting the long lobe of dangling skin and leaving a trail of blood to spill onto his white coveralls. And like the woman, the man let go of Declan, falling to his knees. When Declan’s fist landed twice more, he’d freed himself of enough restraints to stand. By then, his mother and sister were far ahead of him.