Down World

by Rebecca Phelps

  Kieren was silent for a moment, and he stared down at the cup of tea that he had yet to sip. The quiet of the room echoed in my ears, chilling me to the bone.

  “They were already taking him away,” Kieren said. “I’m sorry, M. I was too late. I snuck in through the back door after they were gone. They took him so quickly, his phone and keys were still sitting on the counter.”

  “I don’t understand. My father texted me that he was coming. That he knew where I was.”

  “That was me,” Kieren explained. “I’m sorry. Somehow I thought that if you knew I was the one coming, you might not stick around till I got here.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Kieren shrugged, seeming to turn within himself. “Where’s Brady?” he asked, still not meeting my eyes.

  “He stayed down,” I explained. “We think we found out where Piper went. So he followed her.”

  Kieren nodded, appearing somehow relieved. I heard him exhale, and a slight shuddering sound made his breath uneven.

  “What is it?”

  He shrugged again. “I’m so happy you’re okay,” he said, finally looking up at me.

  Sage approached the table then, after what had been a long and whispered exchange with John in the kitchen. She carried a large tray, with several bowls wobbling on top of it.

  “Okay, hot soup! Watch that your tongues don’t get burned.”

  “We actually have to go,” Kieren said, beginning to stand. “Thank you, though.”

  “You’ll have some soup first.”

  Kieren looked to me, and I supposed my face couldn’t hide the fact that I was starving. The last thing I had eaten was the stale bread that I had thrown up in the alley. I was finally feeling better, now that the antibiotic shot had completely kicked in.

  We stayed and ate our soup, and I even went back for seconds. After a bit, Sage finally cleared her throat.

  “About what’s down there,” Sage began, out of nowhere. “About what’s under the lake . . . we wanted to warn you.”

  I sat back and listened. I was done eating, and didn’t really want to think anymore about that horrible world down there.

  “You went into the hotel, I presume?” she asked. John came over and joined her, and for the first time, a sympathetic expression came over his face.

  “Yes.”

  Sage sighed. She turned to her husband. “John?”

  John too cleared his throat, and for an awkward moment, this felt like one of those horrible movies where the parents sit the kids down to discuss the birds and the bees, and the children pretend that they don’t already know about them. Besides, there was really nothing to say. The plane that existed under the lake was an anomaly. Something horrible had happened down there, and it didn’t matter. Because it wasn’t real.

  “We made a mistake,” John said, a deep sadness filling his voice. “We shouldn’t have created that portal. We’ve regretted it since, but we can’t undo it.”

  Kieren looked to me, obviously wanting some explanation of what I had seen down there.

  “But you should know,” John continued. “That’s not your mother. Your mother is a kind and lovely woman.” He exchanged a look with Sage, who nodded for him to continue. “She’s our friend.”

  “She’s our dear friend,” Sage agreed.

  “And our job now,” John continued, “is to keep that plane separate from ours. You remember what we said? About your brother, and the crossing of the planes? Marina, that is why it is so important for him to come out.”

  “What are they talking about?” Kieren asked me.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I promised. “Let’s just go.”

  Kieren stood up and I joined him. “Thank you for the soup,” I said to Sage, and we turned to leave the apartment. “You’ll keep an eye out for Brady and Piper. They’re going to be coming back through the lake.”

  Sage nodded. “Of course.”

  Kieren and I began to leave, but I could hear Sage shuffling behind me.

  “Marina?” she said, standing to watch us go. “With your brother—with Robbie, I mean—it has to happen soon, dear.”

  “M? What’s she saying?” Kieren whispered to me.

  All I could do was shake my head. “Can we go home, please? I want to go home.”

  Kieren took my hand and guided me out the door. I could feel Sage’s and John’s eyes on our backs as we walked out, but I didn’t turn to face them. We swung by the room where I had stayed and grabbed my suitcase, then headed out the front door.

  On the road in front of the hotel, which was blissfully back to its run-down state, sat a car I didn’t recognize.

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “It’s Scott’s,” Kieren answered.

  “Does he know you took it this far?”

  “He does now.” Kieren opened the door for me and I got in, the shadow of the tall, ugly hotel building falling like a cloak over the car and the road all around us.

  As we drove off, I grabbed my phone out of my suitcase and turned it back on, waiting for it to find a signal. Then I sent a text to Christy: I’m so sorry. We’re on our way home. I didn’t know what else to say, and so I put the phone back in my bag.

  I was asleep before we hit the edge of town.

  I must have been more tired than I realized, because the day drifted by and slowly turned to night, the shadows growing longer and the sky turning pink, then purple, and finally black. I slipped in and out of awareness, vivid dreams of my mother’s cold eyes haunting me into waking up, only to have the exhaustion overtake me again. All the while, Kieren drove in silence. At some point, I realized he had his earphones in so as to not wake me, and the realization that we must have been close to home filled me with a warmth that I hadn’t even realized I was missing.

  The peacefulness of that feeling was short-lived, however. Because when I woke up, we were stopped in a parking lot I didn’t recognize.

  “Kieren?” I asked, coming to and rubbing my eyes.

  “We’re here,” he answered, taking out the earphones.

  I looked up at a large, intimidating building that did not look familiar, and I sat up, trying to get my bearings.

  “We’re where?”

  Kieren turned and looked at me, letting me put together the pieces by myself, I suppose. It was dark out by this point, and the parking lot was poorly lit.

  The building was not tall, and it didn’t seem to have too many windows. Yet something about it seemed oddly familiar, certain shapes and shadows striking me as though I had seen them hundreds of times—the way the trees formed along the skyline, and the curve of the road that led to the parking lot. I found myself spinning around in my seat, undoing my seat belt, and almost hurling myself out of the car.

  And even when I started to put together the inevitable truth that was staring me in the face, I still couldn’t quite process it. I knew that road, and I knew those trees. And now that I looked at the building, I realized that I knew its outline quite well.

  We were at the high school. We were home, in the parking lot of our own school. But it was changed. And this wasn’t some small thing like a brick wall covering a door. This time, no one could deny what was happening. The school had changed. It had become something dark and sinister overnight, and it didn’t occur to me at first how that could possibly be.

  “What is it?” I asked Kieren, who had also left the car.

  “Don’t you know?”

  I shook my head.

  “M, it’s the base. The military base. Like it used to be.”

  I stared at him over the dark form of the car. “It can’t be.” My legs wobbled beneath me, my throat going dry. “Is it a different dimension? Did I come back to the wrong place?”

  “No,” he insisted, and I finally noticed the half-moon circles under his eyes, the strain acro
ss his face, telling me that he hadn’t slept. What if this wasn’t even my Kieren?

  “What’s the last thing you remember saying to me?”

  But Kieren just smiled, shaking his head. “At the train station. I told you I’d take Robbie’s place.”

  I relaxed a bit, realizing that only my Kieren could have known that.

  “You’re in the right dimension, M. But it’s changed.”

  I nodded dumbly, but I still didn’t understand.

  “The day after you and Brady left, we woke up and it was like this. There were guards driving around with MP written on their armbands. The school had changed, just overnight.”

  “MP?”

  “Military police.”

  The breath expelled from my lungs with an audible hum. “Has anything else changed?”

  “No, not that I know of.”

  Before Kieren could explain any further, a car pulled into the lot with bright lights mounted on its roof, shining in our direction.

  “What are you doing there?” asked a man’s voice, booming over a loudspeaker from the car.

  “Nothing, sir,” Kieren was quick to respond, holding up his hands. “Show him your hands,” Kieren whispered to me, and I did as I was instructed.

  The car stopped, and I saw that it was a security vehicle of some kind. It wasn’t a traditional police car, but rather something similar with an intimidating-looking emblem on its side. The man who had been speaking to us got out of the car and approached, a flashlight in our eyes the whole time. As such, I couldn’t really see a thing as he walked closer.

  “This area is off-limits.”

  “Sorry, sir. We were lost,” Kieren replied.

  The man finally lowered the flashlight and stared me in the eyes, as though looking for some sign that we were telling the truth. His gaze was intense and cold, just like the Russian police in the plane under the lake.

  “Get unlost,” the man said, turning to Kieren. “Get back in your vehicle and go. Next time, I’ll bring you in.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kieren replied, curtly and with no hint of emotion. He waved me back into the car, and I knew better than to hesitate. I got in and put my seat belt back on.

  Kieren drove out of the lot before the officer in the car had a chance to change his mind, and we traveled in silence for a moment until he could turn off the main road and park along a side street.

  “I’m sorry,” Kieren said. “I guess I shouldn’t have taken you there at night, but I knew you’d want to see it.” He looked to the dashboard clock to check the time. “We need to go. There’s a curfew now. We have to be inside in fifteen minutes.”

  But I wasn’t really listening. “What have we done?” I asked. I buried my head in my hands, trying to process it. “Who was that guard? Was he from here or from . . .” I let the sentence trail off. I couldn’t bring myself to finish it.

  I felt Kieren put his hand on my shoulder. “Do you want to go home?”

  The thought of the dark, empty house was too horrible to even imagine. My family was gone. And I shook my head, too afraid to even think about the quiet rooms that awaited me there. “I’ve never slept in it alone.”

  “I could stay for a bit. My dad thinks I’m camping with Scott anyway. That’s how I got away.”

  It seemed the only option. I offered a weak nod, and we drove silently through the empty streets.

  The house was cold, and it felt like a million years since I’d been there. I walked through the vacant rooms like they were part of a museum or something. Like I had never lived in them.

  “It’s strange,” was all I could say. “I’m the only one left.”

  “Don’t say that,” Kieren pleaded, following me past the kitchen and into the abandoned living room. “They’ll be back.”

  I could only smile. “I’m so tired,” I finally said.

  Kieren stood awkwardly. “Listen, if you want some privacy, I can go crash at Scott’s. I’ll come back for you in the morning.”

  A voice in my head was screaming not to let him go. I walked up and gave him a small kiss, aiming for the lips, but missing the mark a bit. I felt a little ridiculous, trying to recapture the time his kiss had come so naturally. “Come upstairs for a minute?”

  Kieren let out a small laugh, and for a moment, I felt I had made a terrible mistake. Maybe that night hadn’t meant anything to him. Maybe he had completely forgotten about it. That made two kisses in a row with guys who clearly weren’t into it. What was wrong with me?

  “You don’t want to?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  “Of course I want to.”

  I almost thought I saw him blush in the darkness of the living room. I turned and headed upstairs. I could sense him following me, though I was too nervous to look back.

  Once in my room, I sat on the edge of the mattress, waiting for him to do something. He took off his shoes and came to sit down beside me. We sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment, and to be honest, I didn’t really know what was supposed to happen next. I just knew I didn’t want him to go.

  I lay down, and he did the same, tentatively at first, but then pressing up closer to me. He put his arm around my waist.

  I couldn’t help but laugh, imagining the young boy he had been once. Remembering a time he and Robbie and I had played Twister in the basement, falling all over each other and laughing until our sides ached.

  I didn’t have my brother anymore. But I had Kieren. I realized that the feeling that overwhelmed me in that moment was probably something very close to love. And I found myself thanking God—if there was in fact a God—that he was with me.

  “Kieren,” I said, feeling his warm breath on my cheek, and holding him tight.

  “Yes?”

  “I forgive you.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, his face buried below a tuft of hair, and I was beginning to wonder if he had heard me. But then I felt his whole body shudder. He was crying. I held him as closely as I could, putting my arms around him and letting him cry into my neck.

  “Shh,” I whispered, not sure how to comfort him. I kissed his forehead, and then the top of his head. I kissed his cheeks, and finally his lips again.

  It should have felt strange, but it didn’t. It seemed inevitable, somehow. Like this was something we had always had between us—we’d just been too young to know it. I could have kissed him all night.

  After a moment, I felt his hand come up under my shirt, and I flinched away. “Sorry.” I straightened my shirt, acting more by instinct than decision.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Kieren said, rolling away from me a bit.

  We stayed that way, lying next to each other in silence for a moment. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t seem to want to leave either.

  “Are you mad?” I asked.

  “No, no,” he insisted, turning back towards me and kissing me gently on the lips again. “No, of course not.”

  He sat up on the mattress, and I watched his long back curve against the glow from the windows. A part of me felt like I was playing grown-up, and I’m sure he knew it. But in that moment, I would have done more with him if he’d asked. And so I was a bit relieved that he wasn’t asking.

  “Will you stay here with me?”

  He turned and smiled down at me. “As long as you’ll let me.” He stroked my side with the back of his hand, almost absentmindedly.

  I began to laugh, the gentle touch of his fingers hitting that part of my sides that always got me.

  “Still ticklish?” he asked, a mischievous look coming over his face.

  “Don’t you dare,” I giggled, pushing his hands away. The smile on my face must have lingered for quite a while after he stopped, because he just kept staring.

  “What?”

  “I’m happy,” I said. For the first time in months, I felt safe and I fe
lt right. More so even than I had when I was with Brady. More than I had since my mother got sick. Maybe even since Robbie left. “I just wish . . . ,” I said, and the words were seeping out of my mouth of their own volition. But then my brain caught up with them and wanted to take them back.

  “You wish?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to say it. But Kieren knew me, and he knew what I wished. He had always known.

  “You wish Robbie was here,” he finished my sentence for me. And I couldn’t deny that that’s what I was thinking. “M, I heard what that lady said. That Robbie needs to come out of DW.”

  I weighed my thoughts, not wanting to ruin this beautiful moment with Kieren, but knowing that he needed to know the truth.

  “Tell me.”

  I shrugged a bit, not sure how he would take it. “It’s like you said,” I admitted. “He has to come out of the train portal. And there’s no way . . .” I cleared my throat, which was suddenly quite dry. “There’s no way he can do it alive.”

  He nodded, not seeming surprised, and put his head back down to be level with mine. We stared into each other’s eyes for a bit.

  “You promised me you wouldn’t do anything crazy,” I reminded him.

  “I know,” he said, as though he had already been expecting my protests. A smile crossed his lips, but I couldn’t read what he was thinking. “Do you still have the penny I gave you?”

  I laughed and took it out of my pocket. “Why did you make this for me, anyway?”

  He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I don’t know. I had seen some older kids from the high school doing it once, and I thought it looked cool. I think I was trying to impress you.” His face flushed pink with the confession.

  I put the penny back in my pocket, my cheeks burning and probably turning the same color.

  “It wasn’t until . . . until Robbie went in . . . that I realized that that was a special part of the train track. Maybe those kids I had seen knew something about it. I don’t know.”

  “You said it would protect me.”

  He nodded, finally looking sleepy. “I hope it will,” he whispered, and I watched him in silence as his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep.