The Assault: The Revealing, Infestation, Infiltration, The Fog

by Frank Peretti

  That’s the Brenda I admire so much.

  “Help me up,” she said.

  “Nope.” Instead, I scooped her up in my arms. She cringed and swore—something she’s really good at. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I carried her into the room.

  The expansive room was close to silent. Something was different. I found the professor, Andi, and Daniel standing near the door, which closed behind me.

  “There are less people here,” I said to whoever was listening. “How many made it down the stairs?”

  Brenda said, “I don’t know. Ten, maybe.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. There’s more than ten missing.”

  “Cowboy . . .” Brenda looked me in the eye, her voice soft, but soaked with sadness. “There’s more than one emergency staircase.”

  “Blessed Jesus.” I closed my eyes. “Why did I go to the roof?”

  Andi laid a hand on my arm. “Because this is what we do, Tank. This is our calling. To do our best to fix things. Besides, you can’t save everyone.”

  Nice words, but not cool enough to extinguish the fire of guilt in my gut.

  I waited for the professor to huff as he usually did when any of us talked that way. The huff never came.

  Brenda stiffened for a moment and then stared at her injured leg. “Cowboy, put me down.”

  “Let me carry you to a chair.”

  “Put me down now.”

  I lowered Brenda until her feet could reach the floor. She wiggled from my arms and stood on both legs. She bent the one with the busted patella.

  “I’m not sure that’s wise.”

  “Shut up, Cowboy.” She tested her leg by bending it as much as her dress would allow. Then she pressed the area just as the professor had.

  “No pain.” She straightened. “It’s like nothing happened.” She shot forward and hugged me. Then stepped back. “If you tell anyone I just did that, I’ll deny it.”

  “You mean—”

  “Yep. You healed me.”

  I shook my head. “Someday I’ll get that figured out.”

  “I’m missing something,” Andi said. The professor and I were pacing the room with her. Andi does some of her best thinking on her feet. “I’m missing something. I’m missing something.”

  Yes, she was being redundant, but telling her that wouldn’t help anything. Then she stopped suddenly. I grabbed the professor’s elbow. He was lost in his own thoughts.

  “What?” I asked Andi.

  “Nothing. Probably nothing. Maybe nothing. I need to see Krone.” We gathered up the professor and went looking for the architect.

  We found him at the bar drinking coffee. His wife was by his side. He looked worse than before we went on the roof. Janice looked even more concerned.

  “Mr. Krone, may we have a moment?” Andi asked.

  “You know, the only satisfaction I have at the moment is this: when one of those creatures bites into me, he’s gonna get a mouthful of chemicals.”

  I didn’t expect that. “I don’t understand, sir,” I said.

  “Cancer. I know you’ve been wondering. I’ve got only a few months to live. Given the circumstances, I may be robbed of those.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir.” I was. Now I really felt bad about my erratic gift of healing. “But this isn’t over yet, Mr. Krone.”

  “Are you sure?” He studied his coffee as if he could read the future in it. “I don’t see any way out of this. I know what I saw. I don’t believe it, but I know it’s real. Does that make sense?”

  Andi answered. “Believe it or not, sir, that makes perfect sense. If you knew us better, you’d know why.” She manufactured a grin. He didn’t look up, so he missed Andi’s brave face.

  “Can I join the party?” Brenda and Daniel had been standing a short distance away. She had been testing her newly healed leg. I didn’t know how to feel. I was happy for Brenda but felt a truckload of guilt about Krone.

  Krone looked at her, then at Daniel. He stretched forward a thin hand and patted Daniel on the head. Daniel, who didn’t warm to strangers easily, allowed it.

  “You know, I’ve created mansions, hospitals, and high-rises around the world. I’ve used my mind and skills to create important buildings, but one creation has eluded me.” He looked at his wife. “A child. We weren’t able to have children.”

  Tears glistened in Janice’s eyes. I could see the depth of their pain.

  “No children. No grandchildren.” He turned back to his coffee.

  I’ve met depressed people before. The professor has been known to live in the dark from time to time, but I don’t think I’ve ever watched someone sink deeper and deeper into depression. It was like watching a man drown.

  “Mr. Krone,” Andi said, “I hurt for you. I know your pain is great, but I need your help.”

  “There’s nothing I can do for you. Nothing I can do for my wife. Nothing I can do for anyone here.” Janice touched his arm, but kept silent.

  “Mr. Krone, I want to—no, I need to ask a few questions. Will you help me?”

  Krone sighed and straightened as if getting ready to exert himself. “What do you want to know?”

  Andi took a deep breath. “When I was on the roof, I looked over the edge like everyone with us, and like everyone, my attention was fixed on those ugly things swimming in the fog, and the . . . what happened in the other building. Now it occurs to me that I saw something else. A green glow below the fog.”

  “The horizontal element.” Krone picked up on the fact that we had no idea what he was talking about. “It’s part of the exterior design, like the arched entryway. The bulk of the building is blocky; those elements break up the stark lines of the building. In architecture we call it gingerbread—stuff added to the building’s exterior to make it pleasing to the eye, to make it noticeable and memorable. It’s also part of the interior design.”

  “So the green band is exterior glass like the rest of the façade?”

  “Yes. It projects from the plane of the front by one foot to create a pleasing shadow line.”

  I didn’t know what a shadow line was, but I didn’t interrupt.

  Andi nodded then cocked her head to the side. If we weren’t all going to be monster chow, I would have considered it cute. Her head snapped up. “It’s on the same electrical system as the rest of the building?”

  “Of course,” Krone said.

  “They why did I see a green glow?”

  Krone shrugged. “Emergency lights.”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Krone, but there are emergency lights on this floor and every floor. I don’t think they would make the fog glow the same way the . . . what did you call it? Gingerbread? Horizontal element?”

  “Maybe you just imagined it,” Krone said.

  “She didn’t,” the professor said. “I’ve known her for a long time. If she said she saw it, then she saw it.”

  “I saw it, too,” I piped up. “When I was on the roof.”

  “I have another question,” Andi said. “That green band is at the thirteenth floor?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’m not being superstitious, Mr. Krone. On our way up the elevator, I noticed that there was no button for the thirteenth floor. Is that to make visitors more comfortable?”

  “No. Not at all. I know there have been those who label the thirteenth floor as fourteen, but we’ve never done that. People aren’t that superstitious anymore.”

  “Then why is there no access from the elevator?”

  “The space isn’t rentable. Much of the building’s heating, cooling, electrical, and similar systems are on that floor. Of course, some of it has to be roof-mounted, but we’ve found a way to make utilities more efficient if placed in the lower third of the building. Well, Jonathan Waterridge made all that work. I specialize in design; he specializes in mechanical matters in buildings. The man is brilliant in that area. Far more than I. Just like Ebony Watt excels in interior design.”

  Andi pressed on.
“The name of the building is Portal Bayfront Plaza. Why that name?”

  “Marketing, mostly.” Krone said. “Buildings need to sound attractive, as well as look beautiful. We’re close to the bay, so Bayfront. The bay is a port, so portal.”

  That made sense to me. It didn’t make sense to Andi. “If that’s the case, Mr. Krone, then the name should be Port Bayfront Plaza—not Portal.”

  Krone stared at her a minute. So did I. I wasn’t following her logic. Lucky for me, Andi jumped right into an explanation:

  “A port is a city where ships dock. A portal is a large gateway.”

  “And gateways lead from one place to another.” The professor looked ill.

  We thought on Andi’s comment for a moment, then Brenda asked, “Has anyone seen Waterridge lately?”

  CHAPTER

  9

  Desperate Times Require Desperate Acts

  Brenda’s question was a good one. I hadn’t seen Waterridge since much earlier that evening. Turns out no one had. Of course, we had had other things to think about. Janice Krone slipped away and asked some of the firm’s employees and Ebony Watt if they had seen the third partner. Nothing doing there, either.

  A sick thought came to me. “Do you suppose he was one of those who went down one of the stairwells?”

  Apparently I wasn’t the first to think that. Allen Krone was the most doubtful. “He never seemed the kind of man to panic. If anything, he would try to keep people from panicking.”

  “I don’t like to be disagreeable,” the professor said. Brenda, Andi, and I almost gave ourselves whiplash looking at him. He frowned at us. “I’m a pretty good judge of character, and something seemed off about the man.”

  Brenda started to address the “pretty good judge of character” comment, but I shook my head. No doubt she was thinking of the same instances when the professor’s keen mind missed the boat on character assessment. For once she took a hint from me. Probably because her fortune-telling wall art said I was going to be grub for those fog-swimmers.

  “What makes you say that?” Andi asked.

  “It’s a gut feeling.”

  “Well, that’s logical.” One can keep Brenda quiet for only so long.

  He didn’t snap back, which ended the theologian’s debate about miracles happening in the contemporary world.

  “The brain is always picking up information and details. If we know how to use our brain”—here he paused to make eye contact with Brenda—“we can find clues we first missed.”

  I positioned myself to block Brenda should she decide to go for the professor’s throat.

  “I saw him.”

  The voice made me blink. It was Daniel, and he was looking up at the tall adults (we often think of him as the little adult).

  “When?” I asked.

  He shrugged. Daniel wasn’t good with time. “When you were on the roof.”

  “So that’s where you went, you sneaky little rascal.”

  “Did I do a bad thing?” he asked Brenda.

  The first part of Brenda’s answer was the sadness on her face; the second part was a grin; the third part had words. “Nah, actually, I’m kinda proud.”

  “What was he doing, buddy?” My gut told me this was important. The professor mostly listened to his brain; I tended to eavesdrop on my gut.

  “Standing over there.” Daniel pointed across the room to the westernmost corner. “He was looking at the fog. They were looking at him.”

  Daniel was opening up. He did that sometimes. Usually when we need his help. Otherwise it was one-word answers and video games.

  “They were looking at him?” I had seen that look, and it scared the wits out of me. “How do you know the fog-things were looking at Mr. Waterridge?”

  “I walked over there. I already said I saw him.”

  “Yes, you did, pal. My bad.” I waited a half-second before firing another. “You went over to him?”

  Daniel nodded. “I looked at what he was looking at. The monsters were swimming in a circle looking at him.”

  “Looking at him.” It wasn’t a question. It was me echoing what Daniel said.

  “I think they like him.” Daniel inched closer to Brenda.

  “Yeah, just like I like baloney sandwiches,” Krone said.

  “No. Not like—that. Like a dog.”

  Brenda, who spoke better Daniel than any of us took that one. “Like a dog? You mean like a dog looks at his owner.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “My brain hurts.” I looked at Andi. “Do your thing, girl. Pull it all together. Patternize what we know.”

  “Patternize?” The professor said. “Is that a word?”

  “Not now, Professor. I’ll choose a better word later.” Back to Andi. “You know what I mean. What is the pattern? How does all this connect? I need to hear it.”

  Andi closed her eyes. “Okay. New building. Midrise. Fifty floors, but two are below ground. FAA limits height. Major earthquake. Weird fog rolls in. Aftershocks. Monsters swimming in the fog. Impossible—scratch that. It doesn’t matter if it’s impossible, it’s being done.” She sucked in a lungful of air. “Fog is rising. Fog is inside the building. It will be here soon. No thirteenth floor—no floor labeled thirteen. No common access to the floor. Mechanical space. Waterridge responsible for that part of the design. Building’s name: Portal Bayfront Plaza. Portal, not Port. Portal means gateway—gate. The Gate.”

  Andi’s eyes went wide with shock, and the professor groaned. We had fought The Gate at every turn and come close to death every time. We know so little about them, but they have a plan for this world, and it ain’t good. To make things worse, there are people in this world helping them, maybe even guiding them. We believe some of them are part of a parallel universe, one that is close to ours, but different. The professor says some physicists believe such places exist.

  “I don’t follow,” Krone said.

  “It’s a long story, and a little too weird to believe,” the professor said.

  “I’m a dying man in a building I designed, surrounded by an impossible fog with killer creatures in it. Do you think you can tell me something I can’t believe?”

  “You might be surprised.” The professor looked at us. We nodded.

  As the professor launched into the tale of our adventures, I wandered the floor, trying to sort out what was rattling in my head. Something had to be done, but what? We couldn’t go down the stairs or the elevator. That was certain death, and we had plenty of proof of that.

  I did a few more slow laps around the big room and came to a conclusion. I had an idea. An idea I hated.

  The walk back to my friends seemed like a hike through five feet of snow. I was chilled to the marrow. I had been walking around the perimeter of the room doing my best not to look out the window. My best wasn’t good enough. I checked the rising fog repeatedly, and it was climbing the building faster than I thought possible. It was just two or three floors below us. Pure. White. Soft. Deadly fog. Fog populated by big-headed, big-mouthed creatures with sharp teeth and claws, and a very real appetite for people.

  I returned to my friends. No one had left. Allen Krone looked more stunned than before, but that was understandable, if the professor had let him in on the group we called The Gate. They had tried to do us in before. Worse, they had been trying to do in the world.

  “Feel better after your little walk?” Brenda asked.

  “No.” It took a second or two to work up the courage to make my next statement. “I have an idea. I don’t like it, and you’re not going to like it, either.”

  The moment I finished the sentence I felt something new. It came through the floor, into my feet, and up my legs. This time it wasn’t an earthquake.

  “What’s that?” Andi looked on the verge of panic—and Andi doesn’t panic.

  The vibration increased, and with it a noise that could be felt more than heard. There was no way we could stand this much longer. I’m no architect, but judging by the look on Krone�
��s face, the building might not make it.

  I put my big hands on Andi’s little shoulders and looked deep in her eyes. I had to raise my voice. “Andi, you left one thing out of your summary. You forgot something.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t forget, Tank. None of us did. I just couldn’t say it.”

  I hugged her for a long moment. It was the only thing that had felt right all day. Letting her go was the hardest thing I had done in a long time. Perhaps more difficult than what I was about to do.

  “I’m going to do this,” I said. “I don’t want to hear objections or anyone saying, ‘But, Tank.’ We just don’t have time.” I turned my attention to Krone. “Mr. Krone, you know the mayor, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you friends?”

  “Yes. For years.”

  Good. “So he trusts you.”

  “I believe so.”

  Good again. “I need you to ask him for a favor.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  One Giant Step for Humankind

  I had been right. No one liked the plan, and even though I told them I wouldn’t listen to objections, they objected, anyway. Fortunately, I’m big enough to keep anyone from standing in my way.

  There were hugs all around, and then they dispersed to do what I asked. In less than ten minutes we were on the roof—not just my friends, but everyone. No one wanted to stay in a room that was vibrating like the inside of a bass drum.

  I watched as the mayor’s bodyguards managed to open the rooftop storage room I had seen on my last trip to the roof. Several of the men in the group pitched in, too.

  It didn’t take long to set up the window-cleaning equipment. The building’s davit supports were big enough to hold a window-washer’s basket, the kind that hold two men.

  We wouldn’t be needing the basket thing.

  I slipped into the safety harness the workers wore when they cleaned the windows. We had to let out the belts as much as possible, and it was still a tight fit. I would just have to live with the pinching. Or, if we understood Brenda’s drawing, die with the pinching.

  The creatures below noticed us working near the edge of the building and had worked themselves into a frenzy. I kept hoping they’d turn on each other. No such luck. Apparently they liked the flavor of human more.