Doria Falls

by Michael Pierce

  “Rule number one: Always have the safety on when you’re not actively using it.” Mr. Gordon released the clip and set it on the end table. Then he pulled back the slide and popped out the remaining bullet, and placed it on the table as well. He passed the unloaded gun back to Jeremy in exchange for the loaded one.

  “Richard, are you comfortable with guns?” Mr. Gordon asked, holding it out to him.

  Richard accepted and said, “I haven’t been to the firing range lately, but I’ve been more than a few times.” He secured it in the waist of his pants.

  “There are shoulder holsters on the bodies in the hallway, if you’d like to take one,” Matilda said nonchalantly.

  I took a seat on one of the cream couches and instantly felt the tablet dig into my back. I leaned forward to remove it from the back of my pants and placed it on the oval glass coffee table.

  “Do you have a backpack or something lying around?” I asked Matilda and before I’d finished saying the last word, a black backpack had materialized next to the tablet. I thanked her and stuffed the tablet in the big zipper pocket. Then I pulled the small stuffed Frolics from my front pocket and hid him in there as well.

  “You all must be hungry,” Matilda said and pointed to an open doorway. “The kitchen’s over there. Help yourselves to something to eat and drink.”

  “What do you have?” Jeremy asked.

  “What do you want?” Matilda eyed him challengingly.

  “Hawaiian pizza—Chicago style.” He flashed a cocky grin.

  “Done.” Matilda answered immediately, with no hint of hesitation in her voice.

  Desiree leaned into me and whispered, “How does she know what Chicago-style pizza is?”

  I shrugged.

  “I changed my mind,” Jeremy said. “Lamb chops, garlic mashed potatoes, and steamed asparagus.”

  “Quit playing games with me and go get your food before it cools.” Matilda gave Jeremy’s cocky grin right back to him and turned to continue a conversation with Mr. Gordon.

  Jeremy and Richard headed for the kitchen.

  “Are you going to get some food?” Desiree asked.

  “In a minute,” I said and waited for her to leave before approaching Matilda and Mr. Gordon.

  I was so curious and nervous of our next step that I couldn’t even think about eating yet. Mr. Gordon’s liaison between us and my father was standing directly in front of us. And she was a Lorne, one that didn’t seem to want to kill me (what a novel thought), and she had told me some strange things in her fortune teller tent not so long ago. Was she actually able to see the future?

  “I don’t remember you having the tattoo in the tent,” I challenged as I got up from the couch and joined them by the windows.

  Matilda slid her left hand over her right, and the wolf head vanished. She repeated the motion and the tattoo reappeared.

  “Magic,” she whispered.

  “And about your prophecy? The wolf was hunting me again and someone close to me would die?”

  “Did I scare you?” she asked innocently. She obviously knew the answer to her own question. “I told you to go home because you were not ready to be here, did I not?”

  “I told him the same,” Mr. Gordon said.

  “He has Nicholae’s eyes and cheek bones. Well, we all knew about the wolf after hearing what your brother did; that’s just common knowledge. And there are people dying all around us right now. We are in the middle of a war. There will continue to be casualties, innocent and friend alike.”

  “You can’t see the future then.”

  Matilda laughed. “Oh, Oliver. There is no future, only now, and I can see now just fine.” She turned to Mr. Gordon. “He’s in there somewhere, right? Locked away?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, but neither of them responded to my confusion.

  “Holy crap, this food’s delicious!” Jeremy stuck his head out from the kitchen.

  “Go eat, Oliver,” Mr. Gordon said. “You’ll want to keep up your strength.”

  I did as I was told and joined the others in the kitchen.

  Matilda began speaking again after I was a few paces away. “I already told Nicholae of the breach and what else that means…”

  Centered around the kitchen island, Jeremy was chomping down on his lamb chops, Richard ate messily from a double-patty burger, and Desiree sat on a bar stool, spooning in some split pea soup.

  “You can have anything you want, and you choose soup?”

  “It reminds me of home,” she replied.

  I immediately felt bad for asking because I could surely appreciate the answer and the feeling.

  I noticed an untouched pizza cooling on top of the stove. It was Hawaiian, just like Jeremy had asked for. I couldn’t think of a favorite food and the pizza looked as good as anything, so I grabbed a plate and a few slices.

  “This place reminds me of your apartment,” I said to Jeremy. “Only bigger.”

  “Yeah, more like Kafka’s.”

  “Kafka’s had an older, darker feel to it. This one, like yours, is more modern and bright.”

  “What apartment?” Richard asked.

  “From when Jeremy was missing,” I said.

  “Neither of you went to the school counselor, am I right?”

  We both tried to suppress mischievous grins and failed miserably.

  “It’s okay, there was—and is—so much going on that I didn’t know about, my head’s still spinning.”

  “How do you think Mom is?” I asked.

  “Worried, but she’ll be okay.” Richard paused and set the last half of his burger down on the plate. “I’ll have to go back once we reach Nicholae. I need to see him for myself and know that you’ll be in good hands.”

  “We’re already in good hands.”

  “I know.” Richard sighed. “But I’ll feel better knowing you’ve reached the destination. I can’t leave you in the middle of the journey. And besides, after I go back and explain to your mom everything that’s happened, then maybe I can return—maybe we both can.” He turned his attention to Desiree. “What about your parents? They must be worried sick.”

  “They probably are, my mom especially. I’ll smooth things over when I can. I’ll go back eventually, but for now I need to be here.” Desiree glanced over at me. There wasn’t the happiness in her eyes from earlier, just worry.

  She’d mentioned leaving at some point—going home. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go home, so how was she planning to stick with me until the end? Together. On the other hand, I knew she couldn’t leave her family in the dark forever. I couldn’t do that to my family either, but I also couldn’t let her go. I tried to push the thought of that moment away, lock it far back in the depths of my mind with the rest of my imprisoned memories.

  I heard the click of claws on the hardwood floor and scanned the room to find a wolf entering the kitchen from where we’d first appeared in the apartment. It strolled with its head down and tail swishing slowly to each side. Everyone tensed.

  “I think she’s hungry,” Desiree said and gestured to Jeremy. “Give her one of your lamb chops.”

  “Hell no!” Jeremy exclaimed. “They’re too delicious for just some animal.”

  “I don’t think that’s just some animal,” I said.

  The wolf surveyed the contents and people of the room and seemed to be judging us before continuing into the living room. Matilda appeared in the doorway, along with Mr. Gordon, and the wolf poked its head out from behind the folds of her black dress.

  “This is Saebra,” Matilda said. “She’s shy around new people.”

  “She doesn’t look shy,” Jeremy said, finally finishing his requested meal.

  “You’re not in her head. You know what Jeremy? You’re as irritating as I remember you—an opinion and comment for everything.”

  That shut up Jeremy for a little while—a little longer than usual, anyway.

  Matilda put a plate of
mixed meats on the floor for Saebra and fixed something for Mr. Gordon and herself. While they ate, they looked at each other often. The rest of us finished what we had left on our plates and before I knew it, Mr. Gordon informed us we needed to leave.

  I wanted to continue, more than anything, but I was tired, exhausted really, and could not remember the last time I’d had a good night’s sleep. I’d waited months to see my father, after discovering he was still alive. What was one more day if I could actually lie down in a bed for a few hours, which would be better still if Desiree would lie next to me. This was a safe haven in a destroyed world (despite the dead bodies in the hallway).

  “Why does your apartment look so perfect compared to the rest of the city?” I asked. “There’s not a single broken pane of glass.”

  “I’m a real handy woman, what can I say?” Matilda bent down to stroke Saebra’s thick mane as she finished her plate. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to change out of this bloody dress before we go.” With a billowing tail of black fabric, she disappeared into another room.

  “She scares me,” Desiree said to Mr. Gordon. “Can we trust her?”

  “As much as anyone,” he answered.

  “As much as Cias?” Jeremy asked. He was back to playing with his unloaded gun, twirling it on his finger like a wannabe gunslinger.

  “If you paid attention to the bodies in the hallway, then you wouldn’t be asking such an insensitive question.”

  “It’s not insensitive, it’s looking out for us,” Jeremy shot back venomously.

  Matilda glided back into the room and everyone instantly quieted. She had changed into form-fitting black pants with knee-high leather boots, a crimson blouse, finished with a tight leather jacket. Folded over one arm, she held a few coats, and in the other, dangled the straps of a shoulder holster.

  “I took the liberty,” she said and passed out the supplies. “How about you, darlin’, you want a coat?”

  “No, thank you,” Desiree said. “I’m good with my sweater.” I looked at the white Elliott Smith printing across her chest and doubted she’d ever take it off.

  Jeremy laid his gun down on the counter, and when he did, it dematerialized. He grabbed for it and merely got a handful of empty air. He shot a menacing glare at Matilda, who met his unfazed and exited into the living room with the nonchalant grace characteristic of every Lorne I’d met so far, a grace I needed to learn to mirror if I ever hoped to earn the last name.

  You’ve met your match this time, big brother.

  I was the first to shadow Matilda into the expansive glass box of a room and it took me a moment to notice the view from above the clouds was different. We were the only tower peeking through. Sporadic breaks in the white blanket showed tiny buildings far below, mere toys from our eagle-eye vantage point.

  We hadn’t moved—or had we?

  What’s going on?

  “Don’t look so alarmed,” Matilda said, and then I noticed her words were intended for Desiree, standing a few feet behind me with her mouth hanging open like a fish. It made me feel better. “We’re not in Provex City anymore. I transported the entire apartment to the next plane. You do know there are more than two, right?”

  Desiree nodded weakly.

  “Good. Then I don’t need to explain.”

  A circular metal plate about five feet in diameter was recessed into the carpet like a platform positioned about a step down. I hadn’t noticed it before but this place was a frustrating game of find the differences between these two similar pictures.

  Matilda and Mr. Gordon were the first to step down onto the circular platform before waving us forward. I grabbed my backpack from the coffee table and was the last one to squeeze onto the platform, behind Saebra the Wolf. What looked like a glass tube shot up to the ceiling. Then the floor line came up and over our heads and we were descending in the glass tube through open space. Where we had come from was no longer visible above us, the clouds flew up to meet us, and then we could see for miles in every direction far below.

  Provex City was indeed gone, not a skyscraper in sight. Small buildings speckled the landscape, but there were far more patches of open land than developed communities. This descent reminded me much of my ascent to the SUSY Asylum, the lush green landscape and absence of major highways crisscrossing in every direction, reminiscent of a simpler time.

  “Where are we now?” Richard asked.

  “Doria,” Mr. Gordon answered.

  I reached out to the curvature of the tube just to feel how solid it was. Provex City was full of semi-permeable glass and entrances; it was hard to decipher what was solid and what wasn’t anymore.

  “Try not to be too alarmed with the condition of this plane,” Matilda said. “It has taken the brunt of the damage and can be quite horrific. I don’t know what your constitutions are capable of handling. It’s important you see this for yourselves to fully understand the severity of the situation. No door this time.”

  Picturing the gruesome monorail crash and all the bodies lying in the street downtown, I didn’t want to try to imagine something worse. But if what Richard and Mr. Gordon had said was true about the earthquake not being bad back home and seeing all the destruction in Provex City, what we were about to see would most likely be catastrophic if every level up got hit harder. What made the quake amplify through the planes? Overhearing Matilda and Mr. Gordon talk, it seemed like this was something that had never happened before.

  As we approached the ground, the picture of the landscape below us looked strange. I felt like my eyes were blurring or I was experiencing double vision. I couldn’t tell exactly what I was seeing.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Desiree said softly.

  “Can you make sense of what you’re seeing down there?” I asked.

  “It just looks...wrong,” she said and I agreed.

  I couldn’t describe the scene approaching us any better and my eyes kept refusing to focus properly.

  We reached the ground about thirty seconds later and by then I was realizing the problem was not with my eyes—it was with this plane. The earthquake hadn’t leveled everything like I had expected. I could see from the structures and buildings closest to us that they’d been damaged, but they were still standing. There were cracked walls, crumbling roofs, and broken glass, but there was less of that kind of structural damage here than back in Provex City. The most alarming thing was what I had taken for double vision earlier was an awkward splice or overlay of everything above ground.

  “Oh...my...God...” Desiree gasped as we stepped off the platform. Saebra had already leapt off and stalked away from us, but she continually glanced back as if to say she would stay in sight.

  Jeremy was frozen in place, the only one still standing on the platform, or so I thought. Jeremy hadn’t moved, but the platform was gone. The glass tube, gone. I could see no floating apartment in the sky. And no one seemed to notice us or the fact that we had just been beamed down from the clouds or appeared out of nowhere.

  “Like I said, it’s not a pretty sight,” Matilda said matter-of-factly. “And it will get worse before this is over.”

  “Worse?” Desiree’s skin was turning the color of her eyes.

  Richard didn’t say a word, but all the blood quickly drained from his face.

  This wasn’t a war any longer, this was a massacre.

  Small town buildings of stucco and glass storefronts had large trees jutting out from the center of the structures. Some trees were positioned right into the framing like pillars in the walls. An intact storefront window extended into and through a large trunk, like the tree was somehow holding the glass together. There were stucco buildings that collided with brick or even wooden buildings, creating bizarre Frankenstein structures. Four-story buildings mashed with one-story buildings. Cars fused with trees and bushes like they’d always been that way. Trees sprouting from other trees. And wherever there was a splice of two objects, one of them sat at a slight angle. The right side of
the object touched the ground, but following the base, the object rose a few inches to a few feet in the air. The tops of these crooked buildings and trees faded and disappeared in wispy, translucent plumes—like they weren’t fully here. One brick building I noticed collided with nothing, but it still sat at an odd angle—its right side teetered on the ground, but the rest of the building pushed up at an angle to where the left side was at least two feet off the ground, performing a miracle balancing act. It looked like it was propped up on a cartoon jack, but there was no jack.

  Then there were the people, allowing for the screaming and chaos to be fully appreciated. As many people as there were running around in hysteria, there were as many spliced and fused to every object in sight, as well as each other. People adjoined by a majority of their bodies lay dead on the ground, their mixed systems obviously not able to continue functioning. But people with less-intrusive fuses, like arms and legs, or slightly touching bodies, hobbled together or sat on the ground unable to separate, muttering and crying in utter confusion and horror. Grotesque conjoined non-twins were everywhere.

  A horse ran past with what looked like bushes growing out of its front legs and a man’s arm protruding from its side. What was left of the man’s body bounced limply about the ground as he was dragged mercilessly from the horse’s desperate, yet futile attempt to escape him.

  Desiree dropped to her knees and wretched all over the ground, throwing up all of the wonderful food Matilda had provided for us. I ran to her and gently rubbed her back. She was about to turn to me when she began vomiting more, everything she had left inside now spilled upon the grass.

  “It’s okay,” I reassured her.

  She spit, sniffled, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then rubbed it on a patch of clean grass. After a few deep breathes and a few loud swallows, she said, “Nothing about this is okay.”

  A young girl of ten or eleven cried nearby. She stood by a thick tree covered with light green buds. Her hand was lost within the trunk, only half of her forearm still visible. Half of a bright red ball, the size of a basketball, protruded from the other end of the trunk. She leaned against the tree, barely remaining on her feet. But there was nowhere she could go, nothing she could do...her hand was permanently embedded in the tree. When her legs finally gave out, she’d be simply hanging by one arm.