The message continued to blink on and off on the small terminal screen, and the tingling in his neck was growing much stronger, he realized, and he suddenly got the idea, that maybe he could leave this body now. Maybe the shock from the short-circuit was making that possible. He concentrated, and pushed away from his body, and felt himself go a little ways, before he was suddenly, painfully, snapped back.
He concentrated harder. Focused, and pushed away with all his strength. He fairly flew away. Rocketed outward, and began to spiral down into a blur of colors.
At the same time, the body he had been trapped in, the body that had always been his, blew apart in the control room as if a ton of dynamite planted within it had suddenly detonated.
Willie spiraled down deeper through the colors, and deeper still.
Rochester
The North Side
Mike and Dave sat with Gina, on the rickety old porch of the house on Hudson Avenue. Willie had never come back, and it was all they wanted to discuss.
Willie had left, even though he hadn't looked capable of leaving, but he hadn't come back, and that was bad. Because without Willie, they didn't have a clue as to what to do next. They had been sitting here debating it since late last night, and morning was here now, and not early morning, late morning.
Dave saw her first, as she came walking down the avenue, glancing at the addresses of the houses she passed. She saw him at almost the same time. He got up and walked to meet her.
"Thought you wanted to stay?" he challenged, once they were face to face.
"Thought I did," Lisa answered "until last night anyway. I want to be with you, Dave, if you want me to be that is," she looked up hopefully.
Dave did not want to be alone. Too much had changed, far too much, and although it had hurt him when she had not chosen to leave with him, it didn't hurt that she had come back now, he reasoned, and if he pushed it, she might walk away again. "If it's really what you want. I didn't leave to hurt you, I left because... shit, I don't know why I left," he admitted. "It seemed like the right thing to do then, doesn't seem like such a smart decision now though."
"Doesn't matter," she said, as she drew closer to him, and he held her tentatively, not sure whether she wanted him to. Not sure if he was moving too fast for her.
"I left last night," Lisa said, "you're not easy to find."
"Yeah, well... things have gone bad here, nobody knows, including me, what we're doing. Some of these guys are thinking of taking the entire city over... Running things... I don't, we don't want to be here for that." They parted and walked back to the porch, and Mike and Gina.
Mike's greeting of hello was genuine enough, Lisa noticed, but Gina was cold and reserved, and then spiteful as she spoke.
"Well," Gina said, "look what the cat dragged in. Come crawlin' back did you, Lisa dear, hmm?"
"Stuff it, Gina," Dave said threateningly, "keep your opinions to yourself."
"Fuck you ass-hole," Gina cried.
"I'm warning you, Gina, I'm not about to take your shit," Dave said.
"Oh. You're warning me? I'm scared of that, you fucking creep." Mike started to rise from the porch, thinking only of diffusing the situation, but before he could Gina continued speaking.
"If you think you can just..." Dave slapped her across the face before she could finish. She glared back at him. If looks could kill, Mike thought, as he finally gained his feet.
"Okay, fuck all of you. Keep little Miss perfect-pussy," she screamed as she stalked off the porch.
"Hey, peace, man," Mike said, as Dave turned to him, "she's a fuckin' wacko, it ain't my fault."
"Yeah?" Dave asked. "Well she's your wacko, and I'm tired of listening to her."
"No man, she ain't," Mike replied. "Sincerely, she can walk off if she wants to, I don't care anymore. She latched on to me right after we left Watertown, and wouldn't let go. I'm glad she walked off. I just hope she keeps walking."
Dave lowered his hands, and they sat back down on the porch, watching Gina walk away. Dave spoke. "So, what are they doing over there?"
"Nothing at all," Lisa replied. "Remember Gary?"
Dave and Mike both nodded their heads.
"Well, he and that Frank guy, and a couple of others left. They didn't come back. Everybody thinks they're dead, I guess, and last night something happened to Jessie. I don't..." she paused as she saw a shadow cross both their faces. "You guys had something to do with that? Did You? Did you know they killed John?"
"We didn't have anything to do with it... directly," Dave said. "It was Willie. He had this little freak go over and get her I don't even know what it was about. The freak's dead now, thank god, he was spooky little bastard, and Willie is... we don't know where Willie is only he left, and took Jessie with him someplace."
Lisa sighed. "I don't blame you guys, but I didn't come back to stay here. I... just don't want any part of this anymore, I want to go somewhere else, someplace different, someplace where none of this matters. I mean, I didn't ask for this fight."
"I'm willing to go," Dave said.
"Me too," Mike agreed, "but when, and where?"
"That's not the important part," Dave said shaking his head, "getting out of here is. Not that anyone will try to stop us, this place is all screwed up they don't have a clue about what they want to do. But getting out... I've had a feeling all night that I should get out, that all of us should, before... well, I don't know, but before something happens. Something bad maybe."
"Then lets’ go," Mike said, standing and brushing off his jeans, "I had the same damn feeling, I just didn't say anything, you know, 'cause I thought you'd think I was nuts or something."
They were all standing, and Lisa said, "Okay, where?"
"Toward Ridge Road," Dave said, "I think we'll need a truck... Yeah, we do," he said decisively.
They left the porch and began to walk in the direction of Ridge road, down the middle of Hudson avenue. None of them saw Gina, watching from the shadows as they went.
Willie Lefray
The stop was abrupt, but for a few seconds, Willie was not even aware that he had stopped. The swirling colors were gone, replaced by a soft yellowish glow, that his eyes saw, not through the radar-like vision, but through his eyes, which seemed to have somehow been restored.
The second thing that became quickly apparent was the return of his hearing. A low continuous hum surrounded him, accompanied by a soft metallic clicking, that seemed almost melodious, rhythmic, and a light constant breeze blew past him, bringing odors that he realized he could smell. The air was acrid, and smelled of heated iron.
His body was the biggest shock however. It was his body, and yet it was not. The smooth dark-brown skin was gone, replaced by a silvery metallic membrane. It felt like skin, he thought, as he touched one hairless arm with one of his new silvery hands. It could feel like skin, he felt the touch of his hand against it, but it was unlike any skin he had ever seen. He was also completely naked, and so could see that everything was where it was supposed to be, nothing had been left out of his anatomy, from what he could see anyhow. But he had no body hair at all, just the smooth silver skin, wrinkled in places, lined like skin, imbued with sensitivity like skin, even warm to the touch like skin, but it couldn't possibly be skin, he told himself.
He felt his face with his hands, same full lips, same cheeks, same nose, it was all there, but it was different, and when he touched his head, it was the same, yet smooth, and free of the tight curls that had once covered it.
He held his hands out in front of him, fingers, four on each hand, one thumb per hand, as it should be, finger-nails, all there. He wiggled them experimentally they all seemed to move correctly. He placed one hand to his chest, feeling for his heartbeat, there was none, but he could feel a slight pulse under his hand, and his lungs drew in and released air as they were supposed to.
The heart-beat thing bothered him. It could be, he thought, that this was just another cruel twist of fate. It could be that he was
still not entirely released from death, or... Maybe this was death. Maybe this was what death was like, he reasoned. Senses returned, a body similar to his own, something that lay silent in his chest, yet seemed to be pumping like a heart.
He looked around him for the first time.
He seemed to be in a long circular... tunnel? Hallway, he questioned. There was nothing either in front of, or behind him. No white light that he felt compelled to walk toward, no yawning fiery hole that led to the bowels of the earth, waited for him either. There was, in fact, nothing, as far as he could see in either direction. Nothing, that is, save the smooth unbroken glass-like skin of the hallway or tunnel, and the queer yellow light that seemed to radiate from the glassy walls.
He put one hand to the smooth surface, and a deep jarring vibration sunk into his arm, before he quickly pulled it back. He examined his hand closely, but it seemed none the worse, the silvery skin unharmed, so he once again placed it lightly against the curved surface.
The vibration seemed in sync with the low hum, and he could feel the light tick of the clicking sound as well against his finger-tips. He tested the strength of the glassy surface. It was not as rigid as it seemed, as with very little effort he was able to push it out of shape.
As the surface stretched, his hand suddenly disappeared, and the seemingly solid surface reformed around his wrist. Panicked he quickly pulled his hand back, and the small hole it had made closed instantaneously, with a soft pop and was once again smooth and seamless. He examined the hand, but again it seemed unharmed. He had expected it to be burned, or cut, or something! But it was still as it had been; silvery smooth and lined as skin should be, and he had felt his hand beyond the surface. The air he had plunged it into, had felt... cooler. Passing it through the wall had taken none of the sensation from it at all.
He hesitated briefly, and then propelled himself into the wall. He slipped through easily, and as he once again began to fall through the swirling colors, he heard the soft pop behind him, as the hole he had made closed.
Luther
Luther drifted through the darkness. He had been... Well, he really could not remember where he had been, he realized. In fact, he could remember nothing save the darkness, and drifting through it.
For how long? He asked himself.
But he had no answer, just drifting, time was not important here, he told himself.
And what was time, and where exactly was here?
But he could no sooner answer that, than he could answer any of the other questions his mind was throwing at him.
Who am I?...
Luther, his mind replied.
Where am I?...
The great void, the great is not, the great yet to be, his mind supplied, and that answered nothing either. It only served to add to the confusion.
He sensed the darkness that surrounded him, rather than saw it, for he possessed no body, no real mind, he just drifted slowly, conscious only of the fact that he was... That he was, well, something, someone, somebody, somewhere. He sensed that the situation would soon change though. He sensed somehow that he had been here before... One-time? Many-times? He did not know, only that it seemed familiar, and that he would not be here for long, that it was a transitional place, that he was on the way to another place. Another place, that he could almost remember. A place that he had also been before, many times, too many times to count, and what did it mean to count, he wondered? He was confused by the answer that seemed so close, yet nevertheless just out of reach somehow.
He sensed speed, movement, blindingly quick movement, that seemed to increase even as he discovered it, and began to think about it. Nothing was clear, only vague thoughts, and disjointed memories of this place, and other places like it, and another place, that was... that was...?
Prompting himself did no good. He only knew it was another place, that was different from this place somehow, and that he did not need to think about it, not really, for he would soon be there, and he sensed that once he was there he would remember all he needed to, and then he would kill Willie for what he had done to him. But what was kill and who was Willie? He asked himself. He was given no answer save the same one he had been given, that he would soon be there, wherever there was, and once there he would know all he needed to know.
It was close now. Much closer than it had been, he sensed, and almost simultaneously he burst through the absolute darkness, slammed back into his body with a loud whoosh of displaced air, and found himself standing in a field of violet colored grass, beneath a blood-red moon, and everything came back in a sudden rush. He knew who he was, what he was, and where he was, and he just as suddenly knew that he could not stay here, even though here was home and he wanted to stay, he needed to be elsewhere.
As suddenly as he had appeared, he winked out, and was once again in the black void. Speeding through the darkness, and this time he knew where he was going, who would be there, and what he needed to do once he arrived.
Leaving Rochester
Mike, Dave, and Lisa, reached Ridge Road, before they ran into any serious trouble. They had been questioned as they walked, as to where they were going, but not stopped, and ten of those people who had questioned them, had fallen in next to them as they walked, wanting out as well, wanting only to be on neither side, simply wanting to be, nothing else.
They had liberated four trucks from one of the many car-lots that dotted Ridge Road, and were almost out of the city, when they came upon the road-block. There was no going around it, no detour, and the six men manning the barricade of cars that had been driven across Ridge Road where it intersected Lake Avenue, were not about to let them pass. They were as heavily armed as they themselves were, and they began firing before they had even gotten in range.
All four trucks were quickly abandoned, and they scurried for cover, as four of the men at the road-block jumped into a truck and began speeding toward them, three in the bed, firing as they came, and the other driving.
Mike made himself wait, and once the truck was within distance he carefully sighted on the driver and squeezed the trigger. The front of the truck began to rapidly disintegrate, as several of the others homed in on it as well. But even as the windshield imploded, and the driver was torn apart, several rounds from the men in the back of the truck found their marks.
Dave, who had been crouched beside him, seemed to blow apart, Mike saw with horror. Not at all like he would imagine someone would, when they had been shot. He had imagined someone who had been shot would simply fall over, maybe fly backwards from the force of the bullets, but not blow apart, not be torn apart.
Mike forced his attention back to the quickly approaching truck. With the driver gone, the truck skidded sideways in the road and then flipped flinging the men in the back into the roadway like rag-dolls. None lived, or if they did, they did not move.
Mike rose slowly from the ground, and looked around him. The entire episode had lasted no longer than thirty seconds, probably less, he told himself, yet seven of their group lay dead or wounded around him. Dave was beyond hope, as were four of the others, and of the remaining three, two of them were unconscious, and close to death. The seventh was Lisa, and although she too was unconscious, her wounds seemed to be superficial. Perhaps caused by flying bits of debris that the bullets had spit into the air, as they bit into the surrounding pavement and concrete. He looked back toward the roadblock, but the remaining two men were nowhere to be seen, having most probably fled, Mike thought, after seeing their comrades go down.
Mike dragged Lisa, still unconscious, back to one of the trucks, and had to yell several times to motivate the remaining five people to get back into the trucks.
"They'll be back. They'll get more men and they'll be back, lets’ get the fuck going now!" he screamed.
Whether they finally realized that the others probably would come back, or just the urgency in Mike's voice got through to them, they did move. With two of the trucks behind him, Mike swung off the road and around the barr
icade, crossed Lake Avenue, and entered the south side of the city. The two men were nowhere in sight, and he breathed a sigh of relief as they continued down Ridge Road, away from the north side.
Two hours later they had reached the state thruway, and were working their way toward Buffalo, leaving Rochester behind as quickly as they could. They were not however, the only ones leaving.
Back in Rochester
Frank and Jessie
Frank, Jeremiah, Jimmy, and Gary, with Jessie leading the way, were met by a small handful of people that had stayed behind at the War Memorial, when they arrived back in downtown Rochester.
Shortly after their return, the group that had been scouring the city for food, ammunition, and weapons, returned with most of what they had been sent to get. It was early morning, just after 4:00 AM, and little over an hour later when Bess, Connie, and the others returned the first hints of sunrise were beginning to color the sky.
They had, Bess told them proudly, assembled a line of more than one hundred trucks at one of the thruway exits, and then returned downtown with buses, to begin picking up the others and take them to the waiting vehicles.
They were able to get within a block of the War Memorial with the buses, and by 6:00 AM, after several trips back and forth, they loaded the last bus and headed back toward the thruway.
The thruway was not as tightly packed with stalled traffic leaving Rochester, as Frank had assumed it would be. He was driving the lead bus, with Jessie, Jimmy and Gary, and Jeremiah was driving the bus behind him. Bess, who it turned out, had more experience than all of them at maneuvering a bus, brought up the rear. She had driven a school bus for quite a few years, she had told them, and the city buses were much simpler to operate than the school bus she had driven. All the buses were filled to capacity, and a long train of vehicles stretched out behind as they moved slowly down the thruway.
They hadn't needed all the trucks that Bess and Connie had gotten ready, but most of them. Bess had joked that there probably wasn't a decent truck left on any of the lots once they had finished. Frank believed her. He hadn't realized just how many people there had been in the city, until he had seen the long line of trucks they had still needed, even after the buses were filled. Between the buses and the trucks, he estimated they had close to eight hundred people, and they all knew there were still some that had chosen to stay, believing there was no reason to go.
Earth's Survivors Box Set [Books 1-7] Page 203