Sleepers (Convergence Book 1)

by Stephen Landry

  First day.

  Three years since you entered the dreaming.

  A heavy hand throws me to the ground.

  Michael and I had been at camp not even an hour. I was inside the mess hall. I had already gone about a day without eating and Ed, who had picked the three of us (Michael, you, and myself) up from Anne Arbor, Michigan had told me that was my first assignment. The man that threw me to the ground was named Blair. He had been at the camp two weeks and had designated himself the ‘class bully’. Gifted with incredible strength Blair could punch a hole through a wall and not feel a thing. If you haven’t already guessed getting thrown to the ground by him hurt like hell. My gift was simple enough. When my adrenaline pumped time seemed to slow down. I wasn’t as cool as the Flash or Quicksilver. It wasn’t as if time was actually slowing down. I wasn’t in the matrix bending backwards dodging bullets. It was just the way my mind perceived reality. I saw Blair’s fist heading straight for me. It felt like I spent hours trying to figure out which way to move, how to counter him. My power made it possible I could work my way out of almost any situation. Except this one.

  Blair hit me right in the side of the face nearly dislocating my jaw.

  “You’re going to have to do better then that if you are going to have my back against the daemons,” he said. He let me go after that. Blair had lost everyone in Chicago. His family, his friends, everyone that meant anything to him. The day the daemons came to Earth he took the offensive trying his best to take as many down as possible but when they kept coming he retreated to the outskirts of the city. He watched as the bombs fell that decimated the city. I couldn’t blame him in a way. He was here for vengeance. To grow stronger so that he could face the daemons again. I sat next to Bran who showed me his gift by blowing a paper football across the room towards Todd who held his fingers like a goal. He filled me in on Blair. Even knowing what I know now I’m still pissed he hit me that first day.

  There were eight of us with powers that came to Alaska. Eight of us that would be trained as a team to fight against the daemons. We were one of hundreds of camps all across the world separated for safety against any alien attacks. All of us would train with seven others until the U.E.D was ready to launch the Perseverance, a starship that would take all of us (including you and everyone else who had loved ones in the dreaming, cared for in stasis) towards the daemon ship. There we would use weapons and ships designed by several gifted with intelligence to fight back against the daemons. There we would make our final stand.

  Myself, with the powers to slow time. Michael, who had the power to mimic others with powers. Blair and his super strength. Emily, the fire starter. Bran, the whirlwind. Todd, who could manipulate matter with his mind (though only a limited amount of time before he would become weak). Jackson, super eyesight and hearing. He was here on loan from a state prison. Apparently he was one of a few hundred inmates that were given time off their sentence for serving in the U.E.D - I never asked what he was in for all I knew and all I needed to know was that he was grateful he had been given a second chance. Last but not least was Nate, with his hyper intelligence. He was barely around us as he was almost always working with the U.E.D to develop a new batch of energy weapons we could use against the daemons. I was grateful, when Nate was around he had an ego the size of a small country.

  Powers

  The first few weeks after the event were the worst. We were living in a small townhouse with your brother in Chicago. I was working as a developer on an independent video game about zombies rising from the dead, you were doing your apprenticeship, and your brother was working as a mechanic downtown. I can still remember all the silly pieces of art I made. Each and every time creating monsters inspired from the back of my mind, nightmares I would have. Creating creatures described to me by others. Who would have imagined we would be face to face with such monstrosities in our lifetime. After the event many philosophers (mostly bloggers and a storytellers) began posting articles and making headlines telling the public that the nightmares were real. That the daemons had in fact been hacking into the subconscious minds of humanity since ancient times. Sending noise across space as they made their way towards our little blue dot. We had no idea why they were coming for us. It didn’t matter. I felt like I lost everything when you didn’t wake up. When emergency services finally made their way to our home and told us what was happening. When I sat by you in the hospital exercising your legs so you wouldn’t lose muscle while you slept in a comatose state. I was there when they inserted a feeding tube inside you so that you could. When they gave us our protein blocks because crops and farms around the world were depleting their resources without any manpower.

  Many died in the streets. Homeless that fell asleep in alleys never to wake. Dead bodies in the sewers. The smell ran rapid through the streets. Roaches and rats fed off the dead. Two thirds = 0.6666666 of the Earth’s population fell into the dreaming and less than half of that survived the first six months. We just didn’t have the resources to take care of everyone. Mass graves were laid across the states.

  We were lucky. So unbelievably lucky. The emergency services let us go back to our home after several weeks and would periodically check on you and your condition. Michael and I worked with several of the non profits to get food to those who couldn’t afford the rising prices that choked the economy to death. The entire world entered into a depression. Strategists and politicians worked day and night to come up with a new system of credit that would replace the old. The dreaming that couldn’t get the help they needed continued to die. Several gangs formed throughout the United States looting and moving themselves inside the empty condemned homes of the rich. Violence spread and martial law was declared. It took another six months before things started to feel normal again.

  “With great power comes…” said some random newscaster on the television before it shut itself off.

  “We lost power again,” Michael said looking over towards me. I was sitting by your side drawing in a moleskin sketchbook you had bought me years before. It was nearly filled now. Mostly portraits. I started to draw less scary things and focused more and more on the reality around me. I felt like I was a record keeper. Each time I moved the charcoal tracing out the eyes of someone I had known or seen on the streets I felt like I was making history. Someday you would wake up and I would tell you about the doctor who I drew that took care of you. The nurse that fed you. The older woman who died of old age beside you. Each portrait was a story ready to be told. We had a hospital bed moved in with us not long after we left the hospital. At this point nearly a year had gone by since the event. Nothing had changed. The world was starting to pull itself back together.

  “What are you working on?” asked Michael looking over my shoulder.

  “It’s one of the nurses at the non profit. You know the one that had the daughter with the hots for you,” I answered.

  “Yeah, if only all the cute ones were awake,” he laughed.

  The nurse I was drawing was in her late 40s. Someone who’s daughter was about our age had fallen asleep.

  “More like all the beautiful ones were taken away,” I said staring at your face.

  “You know I still get kinda nauseous when I hear you talk about my sister or see you look at her like that,” said Michael.

  “Well if we didn’t live together,” I replied.

  “Not going there,” he said. I had thought several times about moving out on my own hoping that I could move you out to the country and find a better way to take care of you. There was also Cambridge in Massachusetts. M.I.T was looking for volunteers to experiment on and research. They were hoping to forcefully wake people up. Some recent stories said they managed a few successful attempts however the patients died soon after mumbling and talking in tongues. I would trade places with you in a heart beat. Tear out my tongue just to speak with you again. I knew Michael was right. There was no way I would sign you up for any of those whack jobs experiments. I wasn�
�t gong to risk losing you and neither was he. We were stuck.

  “You know I’m not going to leave,” I said.

  Michael smiled.

  “How about you draw something goofy like a cartoon. Maybe you could make a web comic or do something that would do some good in this world like make people laugh,” he said.

  “Tried that remember, just felt wrong,” I replied. With so much wrong in the world it seemed strange drawing cartoons or trying to make something funny. I had always been a pretty serious person. I mostly preferred my art dark like the works of H.R. Giger or Zdzislaw Beksinski. I also loved the surreal art of Jaroslaw Jasnikowski and Jota Leal. I felt like that was the world I was living in now. A world unlike anything anyone could have ever imagined. The world didn’t end with a zombie apocalypse. It didn’t end with nuclear bombs (not yet anyway) or Nazi’s from the moon. It ended with the world falling asleep. I was living out the pages of a dystopian novel. The world had fallen to shit and was on a downward spiral. No. Slowly. There had to be a cure. There was always a way around. Even magic had to have limits. We knew about the object in deep space. Plans were set in motion to investigate it. Drones nearly a month away would investigate. The dreaming and the object went hand in hand. We knew that. All of Earth knew that.

  A sound outside. Like a ringing. No. A screeching. Like nails against a chalkboard. Like a banshee screaming. Half the neighborhood was out of their homes. Michael grabbed a gun he had gotten his hands on not long after the event. Luckily the sound came from a park over a mile away and he wouldn’t need to use it. He was pre-determined to keep you, me, and everyone he loved safe no matter what the cost. With the world falling into chaos I couldn’t blame him. He taught me how to shoot that summer. Telling me should anything happen when he wasn’t around I had to be ready. I can still remember the first time I felt the kickback from the small handgun in my hand. The feeling of dust, the residue left over from firing again and again that covered my hand and my wrist. The smell of gunpowder that lingered even after I washed. I felt like we had become doomsday preppers. We even had a basement filled with canned goods and gallons of water.

  It was the middle of the day. The power came back on. It was the news. A helicopter was flying around the middle of a small park. Two men were fighting. Well. More like one was beating the other. One man was wearing a long trench coat while the other looked like he was dressed like a lawyer. The one with the trench coat looked like a super villain you would see on TV. Half his face was burned and his hair was dark grey. He had dragged the one man out to the center of the park. He was looking for an audience calling out to the police that surrounded him. What happened next changed the world.

  Later incident reports would call him ‘Reaper’. Dress like a super villain get a super villain nickname I guess. His real name had been Devon Jones. Before the event he lost his wife and child in a house fire. Apparently faulty wires were to blame. He tried to get money from the company that built his home only to lose the case in court. Seemed the judge was biased, the case never made it to a jury and was buried. He lost everything. His wife. His child. His home. He was living on the streets when the event happened. He was staying at a shelter. He woke up surrounded by dozens that had entered inside the dreaming. The man he dragged out to the center of the park had been the lawyer that worked for the faulty home company. Devon lifted him up by the neck and drained the life out of him. The lawyer became old right before the eyes of the world. The police fired killing the ‘Reaper’ in an instant but not before the world saw what happened.

  This was the first televised case but not the first time ‘powers’ had appeared. The first recorded incident was actually a little girl in Brazil. She discovered that she could push people with her mind. After the ‘Reaper’ incident however people got scared. Fear of the unknown crept in. The United States was still under martial law and soon enough more heroes and villains began to appear.

  At times it seemed like a joke. Vigilantes took to the streets defending the poor. I remember hearing stories about ‘chosen’ that emulated their favorite comic book heroes. Some even set up protective camps that people could find shelter. When the villains started doing the same thing only to sacrifice those they had taken in did people begin to get really afraid. No one knew who could be trusted and who couldn’t. Paranoia swept the world. Anyone with a gift was outcasted, reported to the military, taken away. This was also about the time the U.E.D was officially established.

  Sometimes people got their powers at random. Someone could be sitting in a cafe and the next thing you know they go supernova. That’s what happened to Emily. She was writing at her favorite coffee shop. A steampunk story set in space. Something she had once dreamt of publishing. She wrote it now just hoping that somehow it would bring hope to those who suffered in the world. She was taking a sip of a mocha frappe with a double shot of espresso when she caught fire. First she screamed. The fire tore away at her skin bulging and blistering until she fell to her knees and a wave burned everything thirty yards around her. The cafe was destroyed and anyone inside was burned to a crisp. By the time emergency services arrived on scene she was completely unconscious laying half naked in burned clothes. Her skin had already began healing back. She was the first taken in by Ed. Rather then tie her in chains inside some military lab she was brought to Alaska to learn how to control her new gift. There was something magical about everyone that had powers. Something that couldn’t be studied. Something about their energy and aura. The surreal had become reality.

  A month later. The first anniversary of the event occurred. A few weeks after that our drones met the object in deep space. The ship. The daemons. The world watched in horror as some, a small portion of those that slept began to wake. The daemons had delivered a message. They were coming for us. They demanded we ‘bow’ to them as our new kings, our new masters. Their second attack began. The sleeping rose as the ‘withered’.

  “So the zombie apocalypse has finally come,” said Michael. He had just gunned down one of the dreaming that awoke next door. “It killed Susan,” I said staring at her dead body laid out on the front yard. “Just thank God Vee didn’t wake up to be a part of this,” he said aiming down the sight of his handgun and taking another shot at another withered.

  Withered

  You would think the end of the world would happen quickly. One moment there would be a world and the next nothing. We weren’t that lucky. The withered attacked and killed many of the survivors but in this case the end of the world only lasted a few weeks. Many of them were captured. Test subjects for the military. Even weapons released in third world countries we were still waging wars with. Nobody called them zombies though that was exactly what we were all thinking. This was just like that horrible episode of that one TV show we all use to watch.

  “Another down,” said Michael. We had barricaded ourselves inside the house. We were being hunted by the withered. At this point we updated our arsenal to AR-15s and machetes over handguns and knives. The AR-15s were given to us by a man named Niles that lived less than half a block from us. He was one of those people. The kind that keeps a basement full of guns and ammo. He had been a Ranger at one time though he was starting to show his age now. He had just moved into town a few weeks before the event. He was hoping to be closer to his daughter whom he had been estranged from for many years. She was one like you who had fallen into the dreaming. Unlike you she didn’t survive. She had a heart condition and didn’t make it through the first few months. Many with physical problems like her couldn’t be saved.

  “They seem drawn to us?” I said.

  “Probably trying to get to Vee. Maybe something to do with the fact that she’s dreaming. Maybe it’s some kind of signal,” he answered.

  “That makes sense, how many dreaming are there in our neighborhood?” I asked.

  “Twenty eight last time I checked but half have turned withered and the rest are unaccounted for. I tried to reach the hospital but the phone
lines are jammed. I thought they had the relay working but phones are still having signal issues,” Michael said. Ever since the event phones had been working about half the normal time. The military took control of the cell towers and kept the lines open and satellites in orbit. It was the worst way to get unlimited data but it was a free service we all had. Most likely they only did it so that they could keep tabs on everyone but I wasn’t complaining. It made life a little easier. Another thing that made life easier and you may find this strange but I still had every text and picture the two of us had ever shared. Every message since before the first day we met. That day at the creek. The two of us talking as we made our way down a small hill in a state park. The day we felt the water as it fell across a small dam that had been built just a few years before. Messages of our favorite movies, pictures we found and sent one another online. Smileys and emojis. A list of every dream we ever had and hundreds of messages that spoke of all the millions of things we were going to do. The places we planned to travel. Pictures from our day at the zoo, our trip to the city. Pictures of Halloween and Thanksgiving. Video calls that came and went.

  Michael was right that day. The withered were attracted to the dreaming. Nate was a part of the team that detected it. He was one of the first with emerging powers. Once he was a below average student and now he could earn a degree in less than a week. He knew his best bet was too come clean and find the people in charge as soon as possible. Unfortunately for him the first thing he did was join a gang aka the kings of Wisconsin. Nate was a genius but he lacked street smarts. He thought joining one of the most powerful gangs in Wisconsin, his home town would give him an edge. He would help them take territory, plotting behind the scenes while they acted out his orders. After three days he was stuck. The leader threatened his family and made Nate slave like a dog. When he heard about the U.E.D he came up with a plan to lead the kings into an ambush. They gathered their dreaming in one place, a church on the north side of town. Nate fended them off with a bolt gun made out of PVC pipes and wire. The withered overpowered the kings just as the U.E.D stepped in taking military action. Nate soon introduced himself to Ed and the two hit it off real quick.