by Platt, Sean
“At the risk of everyone here thinking I’m just some old hippie,” Will interrupted, “I need to go off and do a bit of my best thinking. That requires herbal supplementation, so I’m off to find Jimmy. If you still trust my instincts after this morning’s monster roll-call, I promise I’ll be back with a plan in less than half an hour. If not, well I really can’t blame you. I am an old man, after all, who’s about to go off and get stoned in our hour of need.” Will smiled, then walked off.
Desmond turned to Mary. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I feel like I’m letting you down.”
“No, you’re not letting me down. I guess I’ve just grown over-reliant on your awesome leadership. And this is all a bit... much.”
“Do you trust Will’s advice?” Desmond asked.
“If I knew how I felt about that,” Mary said, “I’d feel a million times better. But right now, I don’t know which way is up.”
“I know what you mean. I’m not used to my instincts waffling around like this, and I’ve never felt like so many lives were dependent on me. Plus,” he looked past Mary for a second, then swallowed the sentence.
“What?” Mary prodded. “Say it.”
“There’s something about John,” he lowered his voice, “that’s making me uncomfortable. He woke up all weird. I mean, we had this heart-to-heart last night and he was way drunk, so maybe he’s feeling ashamed to have opened up to me or something. But it feels like there’s something more.”
“I felt the same way when I woke him up,” Mary said, though with everything that was going on since then, she couldn’t remember what it was that made her feel that way. She tried to think back to the moment she went into his room, but it was like a word on the tip of her tongue that she couldn’t quite recall.
Dog Vader started to bark again, staring at them from across the bar.
They stared at one another, neither saying a word. Mary wondered what the dog knew that they didn’t.
When Desmond spoke he ignored the subject of John, returning to Will. “If you didn’t trust Will, and you had to put your finger on why, what would you say?”
“That’s the thing,” she said. “I don’t think there’s been a single dishonest word to leave his lips, but I get the feeling there’s a lot he’s not saying.”
“Like what?”
“No idea, really, but I think it might have something to do with Luca.”
“I don’t know,” Desmond said with a sigh. “I think the way they showed up and he walked through the door and pulled your daughter from the brink, then went all Rip Van Winkle is just so out-there weird that anything they say or do is gonna seem weird to us.”
“Do you think Will knows something more about Luca?”
“I think he knows a lot about Luca,” Desmond said, “and a lot more than you get from idle conversation.”
The room was thick with everything Desmond wasn’t saying.
“Tell me, Desmond,” Mary said, “please.”
Desmond’s brow relaxed. “Something bothered me about Will the second I saw him. At first I couldn't figure it out, no matter how hard I wracked my brain. But it finally came to me last night.”
“What is it?”
“Will reminds me of someone I researched about 18 months back, a scientist studying quantum entanglement. Will even said something that was nearly identical to something the scientist said.”
“What’s quantum entanglement?”
“Not now,” Desmond laughed. “In simple terms, let’s say everything in the universe was once one atom. You know, before the Big Bang spread us in a zillion directions all across creation. Even though we’re all separate now, we’re still connected on some level. Everything means you, me, and everyone. We’re all entangled. And somehow, those two are perceiving things that we can’t. They knew we were here and in trouble.”
“I can see how that makes sense,” Mary said. “But it still doesn’t explain the bleakers or whatever happened to Paola.”
“No,” Desmond said, “maybe not just yet. But it’s something that makes Will and Luca a little less frightening, right?”
“I suppose so,” Mary said.
Dog Vader whined again.
“So, does any of this help us figure out what to do next?”
“It’s a piece of the puzzle,” Desmond said. “I just need some time alone to try and figure it all out and make sense of it. Believe me, we’re going to leave here. One way or another.”
Mary didn’t want to consider what Desmond meant by another.
* * * *
DESMOND ARMSTRONG
Desmond sat in a small cubicle at the far end of the temporary offices once offered to business travelers in need of 15 minutes of Internet and quiet while staying at the Drury Inn. The monitors were black, as blank as they would be for the rest of forever, and a fair reflection of the answers in Desmond’s mind.
He stared at the scribbles and sketches that blackened the three sheets of paper spread on the desk. He had no easy way out. Just two choices: frying pan or fire. And if he chose poorly, he’d end up marching everyone over the edge and into an unknown abyss.
If he could pull the edges of his mind together, perhaps he could get the colors of the Rubik’s cube to click into place. Unfortunately, his mind was frayed and splitting; each time he came close to threading a feasible answer, the seams of logic would split and tear his theory in two.
Desmond typically solved life’s problems with a simple formula:
Replicate, isolate, fix.
A mechanic couldn’t be expected to fix a problem until he saw or heard it, which is why you couldn’t just describe the sound your engine was making; you had to reproduce the rattle to isolate the problem.
Whether you were dealing with a rattling engine, some bad lines of source code, or a looming economic catastrophe, effective problem solving meant you must dive deep, narrow your focus, and thin your variables. Only then could you get to the best part — fixing it.
Desmond loved to fix things, and had shown natural aptitude since he was a child. It’s what made him successful in life and business. But every solution started with the variables; they paved the path for the predictors that allowed him to asses the situation and arrive at the next best steps. Yet, when the laws he once knew had softened to gelatin, even seasoned estimation was little more than guessing.
Start with what you know.
Desmond went back to the beginning.
If the entire world, or at least the few hundred miles they’d traversed, had disappeared, how were a small cluster of survivors from Warson Woods, all living next to and across the street from one another, able to survive?
There had to be a reason, and it couldn’t be geography, not with Will and the boy crossing the country from the west coast. They were the anomaly, at least from the Drury Inn side of the equation. And Will had already told him that they’d not seen another soul along the way.
They’d had plenty of unexplained drama in Missouri, but nothing compared to what the pair of travelers brought, with supernatural connections and rapid aging, not to mention a dash of dream sharing, which apparently sent them across the map to help the Warson Woods gang in their hour of need.
It almost seemed like a… plan.
But if it was a plan, someone had to be the planner.
Desmond snapped one of the hotel’s complimentary pencils, then flicked it to the edge of the desk and ran his hands through his hair.
He’d give anything for access to his hard drive and a working network. After all his team’s research on Quantum Entanglement, he couldn’t help but feel something was obvious, some connection, something that could help him, help all of them see the other side of a solution.
Desmond swept the trio of sheets into the trashcan, then turned his notebook to a fresh page. He drew a giant circle, then sketched smaller circles around it to mimic the hive like clusters forming outside.
A hive!
That was it — the bleakers are a hive
.
If they were a hive, they had a queen.
And if they had a queen, she had to be somewhere close, or drawing closer.
The bleakers were exploding in numbers. It made sense that something was pulling them in, like ore to magnet.
Desmond groaned, then stood and stretched. He reached down, tore the sheet from his notebook, then crumpled it into a ball and tossed it in the wastebasket.
He left the cubicle, crossed the hotel lobby and pool area, and went into the small gym at the far side of the inn. He hopped on an exercise bike, one of the kind that didn’t need electricity to provide resistance.
Ideas arrived faster in motion.
Desmond rode for three minutes, then dialed the resistance to 4, the highest setting before riding turned to racing, then moved his legs for a few more minutes, skating along the edge of several ideas, but unable to grab a single one, and knowing they were all wrong before he even tried.
He was glossing over something obvious, something that would illuminate truth and steer them clear of danger. Something he already knew had to be useful, something in his memory banks, already discovered then filed away like any of life’s impressions that are irrelevant at the time imprint.
Desmond dialed the bike to 6 and and pedaled faster.
Sweat painted his face as the fingers of his mind finally wrapped around the frayed edges of an answer. He hadn’t pushed himself this hard on a bike in months. That old familiar “runner’s high” was kicking into gear. While endorphins stimulated pleasure receptors in the brain, they also had a secondary effect on Desmond, stimulating his creative process. He’d had many of his best business ideas during, or shortly after, a good run or bike ride.
If he could just push himself a little bit harder, a little bit faster, he would find the answers he needed now...
or die trying.
* * * *
DOG VADER
earlier that morning...
Dog Vader paced in a circle.
Where are Luca and Will?
This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. It wasn’t how it was in his dreams.
It is here. This is bad.
Mary should have been able to understand him, but she couldn’t. He was just a dog to her. But he had to let her know that the soft man was an impostor; the dark one, the thing that made everything black.
“John, it’s time to go.”
Growl....Growl....Growl....
The impostor looked at him with eyes full of hate, then turned to Mary.
A sea of rot hung like a thick fog in the room, putrescence dripped from the impostor. She should have smelled him. But humans didn’t smell things like dogs did.
He had to get Luca to sleep. That was the only time they could talk, or at least it was the only time Dog Vader could say what needed saying and be sure Luca would understand. They had managed alright outside of sleep, at least the first two days, but that was before they found Will.
Of course they were supposed to meet Will, just not so early. And not like they had.
Jimmy and Desmond joined Mary and the impostor, but Will and Luca were still nowhere. Luca was probably with Paola. Vader wondered if Will was off smoking somewhere.
Jimmy headed toward the stairs, leaving the impostor and Desmond alone.
Growl....BarkBarkBarkBark...Growl...
Dog Vader’s barks bounced across the nearly empty hotel. He trotted toward the offices. The problem with humans was answers were usually everywhere and solutions often obvious, yet they rarely opened their minds wide enough to grab them.
Luca came out from the hallway and Dog Vader galloped toward him, nuzzling his knee and rubbing up against his leg.
“I’m happy to see you too,” Luca said.
Jimmy ran into the room. “You guys are gonna want to look at this!”
He blasted back through the stairwell door. Everyone followed. Luca led Dog Vader by the scruff of the neck, through the door and up to the 2nd floor.
“Christ on a cross,” Desmond said. “When did this happen?”
Dog Vader looked out the window.
The tide was rising. Fast. Too fast. Definitely ahead of schedule.
Dog Vader could feel the impostor soaking in his mounting power.
BARK...BARK...BARK...BARK...
YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.
THIS MAN ISN’T THE SOFT ONE, JOHN; HE’S AN IMPOSTOR.
A PLAGUE OF NEVER-ENDING PESTILENCE.
A STARLESS NIGHT, DROWNING EVERY DROP OF THE PLANET’S LIGHT.
BARK...BARK...BARK...BARK...
“Luca,” Will said, “would you mind taking the dog downstairs so we can figure out what to do?”
Luca nodded, then led him by the neck back downstairs.
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF
“I’m sorry Lord Vader, but I can’t help you if you don’t stop and tell me what’s wrong.” Luca tried to listen, but had already forgotten how.
BARK...RUFF...RUFF...BARK...RUFF....RUFF
THE SOFT MAN IS AN IMPOSTOR. THIS WASN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!
BARK...RUFF...RUFF...BARK...RUFF....RUFF
Luca looked at him with kind eyes, then sat cross-legged on the floor and petted his hair. It was strange, the way the boy’s cheeks had thinned in minutes. Vader had to talk to Luca. If he could only get him to sleep, everything would be okay. But the boy wouldn’t sleep until night. And given how much was going on, he might not shut his eyes until later in the night.
Vader didn’t know if they’d have that long before the bad man did something horrible.
“You’re a good boy, Vader, er, I mean Kick.”
Paola opened the stairwell door.
“Hey,” Luca said.
“Hey,” she said. “Wanna play Blokus?”
“No,” Luca said, shaking his head, “I don’t like playing it with just two people. Besides, Blokus makes me miss home most.”
Dog Vader whined.
“How about Monopoly?”
“I’m not really very good at that game,” Luca said as he looked down. “I’m okay, but sometimes it’s hard when the numbers get big. How about Battleship?”
“Okay,” she agreed, “but only four games. Then we’re playing two games of Sorry and three of Konexi.”
“Why do you get an extra game?”
“It’s called interest,” Paola said, then laughed. “Now come on!”
Dog Vader whined.
“I’ll be back, okay Vader?”
He whined again.
“You can come, but you won’t have fun,” Luca said. “I can’t pet you when I’m trying to concentrate.”
More whining but Luca wasn’t getting the message.
“Okay, you can sit with us. But don’t expect any attention!”
Vader trotted behind Luca and Paola, then sat beside the boy as they unboxed their game of Battleship.
Dog Vader could feel that he was in grave danger. The impostor would end him the second he had the chance. He wouldn’t be reckless, or do anything in front of anyone else. For the moment, Vader was safe, but that moment would fade and time wasn’t smiling.
If he was going to die, so be it, but he had to go knowing his work was done. If he could warn the boy, at least it would be something. Not many like him were left, breathing bridges between what had happened and what was about to.
He had to get the boy alone and snoring, which usually wasn’t hard in the middle of the afternoon. But too much commotion was present with the other kids.
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF
“Stop it, Lord Vader!”
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF
“I mean it! If you don’t stop barking you can’t play with us anymore.”
Growl....Growl....Growl....
Dog Vader trotted toward Desmond, standing
at the front of the lobby. The black things were outside, but had moved back a bit, making the people less afraid that the things would storm the hotel. Dog Vader watched the things, then watched Desmond watching the things. He didn’t want to interrupt Desmond. He could tell that the man was figuring out something. Desmond could smell stuff better than the rest of them, even Will, at least in his own way. They both stood there for nearly 10 minutes. He could sense that Desmond was close to discovering what Vader already knew.
He wondered if Desmond could understand him. He was the most intuitive of the group, other than Luca.
If Desmond could understand him, then Dog Vader would be willing to tell him everything he needed to know. He couldn’t wait any longer; he had to get Desmond’s attention.
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF
“Not now, boy,” Desmond said.
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF
Desmond moved his gaze from the window to the dog, then dropped to one knee. “What is it?” he said. “What do you know?”
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF...THE SOFT MAN IS AN IMPOSTOR, A PLAGUE THAT WILL RUIN EVERYTHING. HE IS A STARLESS NIGHT THAT WILL SLOWLY FADE UNTIL THE SKY IS AS BLACK AS HIS INSIDES!...BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF
“You smell something,” he said, then stood and shook his head. “Me, too.”
“Lunch!” Mary called.
Desmond walked toward the bar and Dog Vader followed. They were halfway there when the impostor and Jimmy entered the lobby.
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF RUFF
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF RUFF
“Maybe we should put the dog in one of the rooms,” the impostor said.
“No, he’s okay, right, boy?” Luca tried to soothe him.
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF RUFF
BARK... RUFF RUFF...BARK... RUFF RUFF RUFF