The Summer It Came for Us

by Rix, Dan

  I twisted around in space, heart thumping in my throat, and spotted his wriggling body fifty feet away.

  My hope soared.

  He was alive, three-dimensional, made of flesh—

  With a jolt, I realized he was quickly shrinking into the distance; the Glipper was towing him away to God-knew-where by the ankle.

  “Malcolm!” I yelled. “Malcolm, over here—”

  The words died in my throat.

  The Glipper.

  It wasn’t a shadow anymore.

  It was some sort of a man, nine feet tall, with splotchy gray skin and long, sinewy limbs. My skin crawled just looking at it, and I shuddered. Eugh, it was a hundred times worse in the flesh.

  That . . . that thing had Malcolm.

  Malcolm caught sight of me and, for a single stunned moment, quit struggling.

  “Remi, are you insane?” he bellowed across the void, his voice much closer now. “Get out of here—run! RUN!”

  Then he went back to fighting the Glipper, cursing and kicking at its arm, whacking it with his empty gun. The Glipper either didn’t notice, or didn’t care, its grip like iron as it dragged him farther and farther away.

  Somehow, I got the impression this thing was immortal.

  I slipped into panic. I had to get to him . . . before the hundred feet ran out.

  But how?

  How did one travel in this place?

  The Glipper appeared to be striding effortlessly through the empty space.

  Only one way I could think of.

  Taking hold of the rope, I reeled myself back toward the surface until my feet dipped into it, sending out gentle ripples. My feet became flat under the surface. Feeling around, I found a solid foothold on the side of a stalagmite, crouched down, and leapt off it as hard as I could.

  I shot out into the darkness toward Malcolm, trailing the rope behind me.

  It worked!

  “Remi, NOOO!” he yelled.

  Ten feet away from him, I flicked the cap off the flare and yanked the string.

  The tube fizzled in my hand, sputtered weakly, and petered out with a gurgling sound.

  A dud.

  Because it had been underwater.

  No.

  My body collided with Malcolm, who caught me. My momentum sent him spinning, and his leg pulled taut in Glipper’s grip.

  The Glipper turned its head then.

  I took one look, and felt the blood drain from my face.

  I found myself staring into two empty pits in a leathery face that had no nose, no mouth, no chin.

  As I stared, horrified, the talons of its other hand closed around my neck like a vice, choking off my last breath.

  My whole body went eerily still, and I knew right then I would die—

  In my hand, the flare gave another crackle . . . a tiny pop . . . a weak fizzle . . .

  Then erupted in a white-hot blaze.

  Yes!

  I jabbed it toward the Glipper’s face. The creature recoiled, letting go of my neck and trying to drag Malcolm away.

  Just then the rope around my middle gave a painful jerk, halting Malcolm and me in midair—the hundred feet were up—and at last, the Glipper released him.

  “Go, go, go!” Malcolm shouted, and together, we climbed back down the rope toward the surface . . . toward the universe we’d just left.

  The Glipper followed us, lunged at us, tried to swoop below us, but the flare was as bright as the sun, sheltering us in a protective bubble of light.

  “Look—” Malcolm pointed to the side.

  Flickering into view, a second flat universe lay parallel to the first. In one area, its surface had caved in, forming an hourglass-shaped tunnel across the empty space to the other one.

  The wormhole.

  Our doorway home.

  That other universe was ours.

  I only had a second to look, because a moment later, we crashed into the flat surface, tumbling out of the cave wall on the other side.

  We leapt onto the stalagmites, one each, and climbed toward the wormhole. I held the flare in my teeth, squeezing one eye shut against the heat and blinding flame. Good to know a marine flare worked outside the universe, too.

  Behind us, the Glipper’s shadow crystallized into focus. It burst out into the cave in its full glory, all nine feet of mottled gray skin and froglike limbs, and scrambled after us on all fours.

  Ooh, it looked pissed.

  “Faster, faster,” Malcolm muttered.

  The Glipper reached the stalagmites, nipping at Malcolm’s heels, and I jerked my head so the flare landed on its face.

  It shrank back, claws scraping on the limestone, then took a wide circle around the flare, and closed in again.

  We reached the top.

  “You first,” he yelled.

  “No,” I cried, remembering what happened last time. “Together.”

  “Together,” he agreed, and we grabbed hands and leapt into the wormhole.

  We seemed to fall forever into pitch blackness, and then we tumbled to the ground on the other side, back in our own universe . . . safe.

  Above us, the Glipper’s silhouette appeared in the glowing circle hovering in midair—the wormhole, still illuminated by the flare on the other side.

  It stared at us for a moment, then slowly lowered itself away from the opening.

  We were out of its universe, out of its jurisdiction now.

  We were free.

  For a long moment, we lay there catching our breath. The flare, still burning somewhere on the other side of the wormhole, cast an orange glow on the cave ceiling, which slowly began to dim.

  “Thank you”—Malcolm rolled over and kissed me—“for saving my life—you brave, amazing girl, you.”

  “Just repaying the favor,” I said, grinning up at him in the darkness.

  He pulled me up by the hand. “Come on, let’s go home.”

  Outside the cave, my eyes went straight to the Shasta-Trinity Supercollider complex, ablaze under floodlights, just like the night we’d crashed, and the accelerator ring glowing like a string of Christmas lights.

  Yes, we were back in our own universe.

  Thanks to their high-energy runs, we’d had a doorway back.

  A flashlight beam swept over us, and I squinted up toward a pair of flashlights up on the cliffs.

  “There! They’re down there!” yelled a familiar voice.

  A few minutes later, Zoe and Vincent climbed down to meet us, and seeing them both alive, I just about died of happiness.

  We tackled Vincent in a bear hug, then pulled in Zoe, and then everyone was talking at once.

  “Dude, we talked to your mom,” Malcolm said. “We figured it out—”

  “That night,” I said to Zoe, “when you went through the wormhole . . .

  “I know, it was the Lagrangian points,” Vincent said, a wild excitement in his eyes.

  “It was like something guided me there,” Zoe said, looking awed.

  “And that time down in the drainage pipe,” Malcolm said, “your GPS marker . . .”

  “And you don’t think you’re dead anymore?” I asked.

  “I had the same idea,” Vincent said, “I thought I was looking for you.”

  “I woke up the moment I went through the wormhole,” she said, “but I couldn’t find my way back to you guys . . .”

  “And Jace?” Vincent peered behind us. “Where’s Jace?”

  The mood sobered.

  Malcolm squeezed Vincent’s shoulder, shaking his head. “Jace died in the car crash.”

  Seven Weeks Later

  “You think he’s going to be any different?” Zoe asked next to me, while I nervously scanned the line of midshipmen coming out to greet their family and friends after the noon formation for Plebe Parents Weekend. “Like, more mature?”

  Vincent snorted. “Yeah, because six weeks of boot camp was just what Malcolm needed.”

  “Guys, shut up.” I craned my neck, wondering if I would even rec
ognize him.

  Everybody looked the same, dressed in their crisp white uniforms.

  “Says here they’re required to stay within a twenty-two mile radius of the yard,” Vincent said, reading from the pamphlet. “The circumference of that is, what, a hundred and thirty-eight miles? Wonder what we could do with a supercollider that big.”

  “Not funny,” said Zoe, letting out a sigh. “Guys, I miss Jace.”

  “Well, somewhere out there,” said Vincent, “there’s another universe—an infinite number of universes, actually—where he’s technically still alive. Who knows, we might even see him again one day.”

  I did my best to ignore them, and the gnawing nervousness in my stomach.

  I was about to see Malcolm.

  Oh God, I was about to see Malcolm . . . my boyfriend.

  He’d gone through this amazing experience of training and discipline, and I had done . . . what? Spent all my free time missing him and thinking about him and doing nothing, that’s what.

  Seriously, why did UCLA have to start so late?

  I felt like the lame kid stuck at a party after all the other kids had gone home.

  I’d been Malcolm’s official girlfriend for one week before he’d gone off to Plebe Summer, during which he wasn’t allowed a computer, and he’d only been allowed three thirty-minute calls to me. Other than that, our only correspondence was letters, which he’d barely managed to fit into his busy sixteen-hour-a-day training schedule.

  Now he felt like a stranger all over again.

  What would our reunion be like?

  Were we still even boyfriend-girlfriend? Or, as I dreaded, would we revert back to friends by default, and he would be forever off-limits?

  Ugh, he was probably planning to break up with me the moment he saw me.

  After getting back to our universe, life had pretty much returned to—well—normal.

  Since that crazy night we’d escaped the Glipper’s clutches, we hadn’t seen the creature once, and every day that passed I felt more certain we never would again.

  Well, things were as normal as they could be—dating Malcolm could never feel normal.

  But I was happier. A lot happier. I no longer carried the guilt of my brother’s death on my shoulders, and this summer no longer felt like the end of an era.

  It felt like the beginning.

  Like the beginning of something vast and unknowable, but ultimately exciting.

  I didn’t worry about losing touch with Malcolm, Vincent, and Zoe anymore.

  It just so happened that accidentally driving into a parallel universe and having to evade a four-dimensional being that wanted to drag you into a cold, black void was the kind of thing that bonded friends for life.

  The trouble was, I didn’t know whether Malcolm and I could stay more than friends.

  That question had my stomach in knots.

  Suddenly, I spotted him.

  Walking tall and proud, with his newly buzzed hair, crisp white pants, and gold-braided officer’s cap, he stood out even among the other midshipmen.

  He caught sight of us—of me?—and broke into a grin.

  My jaw fell open.

  He looked so freaking handsome.

  “There’s my girl.” He swept me into his arms and stared deeply into my eyes, and I knew he’d missed me just as much as I missed him.

  My stomach was no longer feeling the effects of gravity, and had launched into a helpless spin. I touched his cheek, mesmerized by every insanely gorgeous facet of his face. “I . . . missed you . . . so much.”

  “There’s not supposed to be any PDA,” he said, “but fuck it.” He kissed me on the mouth, slowly at first, reverently, and I savored the taste of his lips, his smell, his touch, falling deeper and deeper into him until my toes curled.

  Behind us, Vincent fake-coughed. “Ahem . . . PDA . . . breaking the rules.”

  “Vincent, let’s make out so they feel uncomfortable,” Zoe suggested.

  Laughing, Malcolm let me go to give them both huge hugs, and I broke into a cheesy grin, my cheeks still flushing from his kiss.

  Online, there was some agreement that for long distance relationships with Annapolis attendees—Mids, they were called, short for midshipmen—the toughest part was making it through these first six weeks.

  We’d made it through the first six weeks.

  And right then, I knew things would never change between us.

  He was still Malcolm, after all. Still too intense for me, too hot for me, too good for me, too everything for me, and I knew I would be holding on for dear life . . . for the rest of my life.

  If you enjoyed this book, please consider signing up for Dan Rix’s newsletter to get updates on new releases. You can sign up right here on your kindle at this link. Thanks for supporting an independent author.

  Turn the page for more young adult mystery books by Dan Rix . . .

  Translucent (6-book series)

  When a meteorite falls near her campsite in the San Rafael Wilderness, troubled teen Leona Hewitt ventures down into the crater looking for a souvenir.

  What she discovers changes her life . . .

  Click here to learn more about Translucent and buy the first book on Amazon.

  Timeloopers (4-book series)

  She’s dead.

  Samantha, her wavy caramel-colored hair, her little Bambi eyes, her angel face . . . dead.

  Killed in a car crash at 1:45 a.m. last night.

  But what if there was a way to save her? What if there was a way to send back a warning? What if there was a way to undo it all? The crash. Us. Falling in love. All the way back to the beginning.

  What if there was a machine?

  Click here to learn more about Timeloopers and buy the first book on Amazon.

  Other books by Dan Rix

  Standalones

  Broken Symmetry

  Triton

  Entanglement

  The Summer It Came for Us

  Timeloopers Series

  A Strange Machine

  The Ghost at Retreat like

  An Infinite Loop

  The Man with Two Pasts

  Translucent Series

  Translucent

  Of Starlight

  Ash and Darkness

  Slaying Shadows

  Black Sun

  Demon in Sight

  God’s Loophole Series

  God’s Loophole

  Eternity’s End

  Heaven’s Enigma

  Time’s Beginning

  The Infernari Series (co-authored with Laura Thalassa)

  Blood and Sin

  Finally, turn the page for a sneak peek of my Timeloopers series . . .

  Six minutes to the second click.

  The Chronos hummed behind her, a fridge-sized box of shiny black plastic, indicator lights washing her skin in neon purple.

  Just do it quick. Write the note and go.

  Iris had nabbed a sheet of notebook paper from a classroom upstairs, along with a pencil. Hands trembling, she flattened it on the table and stared at it.

  What do I write?

  Five minutes.

  She stared at the blank lines.

  Kind of a bad time for writer’s block.

  Almost below the range of hearing, the machine’s purr distracted her, got into her bones, she couldn’t hear herself think over it.

  My blood.

  Shut up. What should she write?

  The spider. Write about the spider.

  But she’d found the spider, right? Anneliese had killed it. Cory . . . warn Cory. Warn him not to go on the zip-line.

  Her pencil touched the paper.

  She stopped.

  Why is my blood on the floor?

  Just write the note. The note would work fine. She checked her phone.

  Four minutes. Four minutes to the second click.

  Plenty of time.

  Nuh-uh. She needed more time. Time to think.

  Could she start another timeloop?
<
br />   No, she had to send something back in this timeloop, and the second click was the only input.

  Quit procrastinating. Just write the note.

  It will work. Once inside the machine, the note would enter a parallel quantum state that looped backward in time, and it would emerge this morning upon the first click—the output—where she would retrieve it from the machine.

  “Cory whatever you do, don’t go on the zip-line,” she whispered, as she began to write it out.

  Cory, whatever you do, don’t

  Her pencil froze midsentence, and a sudden realization sent an icy storm of prickles down her back.

  She wouldn’t retrieve it from the machine.

  She hadn’t.

  This morning, after they heard the first click, they’d refused to open the Chronos. They had walked away instead, choosing not to get involved. At the time, it made sense.

  But it meant her note would sit there, unread.

  She would die of a spider bite, and everything they had done to fix the past would unravel.

  “Fuck,” she breathed.

  They hadn’t opened the machine.

  Three minutes left.

  She stuffed the note in her pocket and spun away from the table. Panic electrocuted her nerves, tiny shock waves all across her skin.

  Idiot. Why hadn’t she realized?

  She had to send something back that would make noise, attract their attention . . . a little servo motor attached to a bell.

  No, no time.

  An animal. Tie the note to an animal’s foot.

  A chipmunk. She started toward the stairs, halted. Had she ever caught a chipmunk? And what if it fell asleep?

  An alarm! Her cell phone. She could set an alarm to go off in nine hours, the length of time it would take to travel back in time . . .

  She dragged out her cell phone. Nine hours from now, that would be 5:15 a.m. Her shaky fingers tapped the keys.

  Wait. They’d done this before. With Noah’s phone. When it emerged from the Chronos, it automatically reset its clock based off the cell network, which meant she had to set an alarm for this morning instead—for 11:16 a.m.

  Still, she hesitated.

  Only a tiny sliver of red filled the battery indicator. Her phone would run out of batteries in a few hours. It wouldn’t make the trip back. In her hand, the clock changed to 8:13 p.m.