“But why?… When you saw what it was, why didn’t you stop?”
“Why do anything Kurt? Why go to the moon? Why build a flying machine? It’s human nature to push the boundaries of science, to see what we’re really capable of, to find out where it all ends. But you’re right. It’s an awful place. It seemed so exciting at the time. The formulas overstimulate the mind, they can become quite addictive. It’s been a while since we’ve had to send someone down there.”
“Would you ever go back?”
Maddie shook her head.
“Never,” Lucas grunted. “Not if I can help it. I never want to go back again. Not after last time.”
Lucas took a long swig of vodka and went quiet. Kurt lay his head back and looked wide-eyed at the ceiling, his unconscious making patterns and swirls in the surface of the ceiling. His mind was buzzing with the information, unable to take it all in.
Was he really special? Sabrina had seemed to think so but that had been in her state of desperation, using her words like lubricant to grease Kurt up and get him to do the unimaginable. Even then, he had resisted. Hands shaking as his finger hovered over the trigger. Heart thumping as Sabrina took the gun, rolled her eyes, and fired into her own face. Lucas, on the other hand, seemed to have no motivation to proclaim Kurt’s uniqueness, other than the fact that it seemed Kurt was the only person to ever have entered the Deadspace without medical help. He still had no idea how he did it, only the vague memory of the roaring pain shooting from his heart to his head. A short while ago, Kurt had been in danger of falling asleep on a concussion, now he couldn’t imagine closing his eyes. What the hell did it all mean?
There was only really one option that kept circling in Kurt’s mind. One way that Kurt would be able to get his answers. He could picture it in his head: finding the door with the flickering bulb, the handle finally turning open, following the trail of Amy’s voice and pulling her free from the Deadspace, reuniting once more. Maybe when they were both free, they could join Lucas and Maddie on the road? Or, maybe he could return to the Coopers’.
The next part didn’t matter, really. As long as he was with Amy, that was all he needed.
“So… the yellow. That’s the one you need to give a person to send them into the Deadspace? That one kills people?”
Lucas yawned, his eyes heavy. “I don’t know how you did it, kid. But, yeah, the yellow is the only surefire way to submerge yourself in the Deadspace. The only guaranteed way to die, without having died.”
If Lucas had been paying more attention, he may have seen the hungry glint in Kurt’s eyes as he stared at the yellow syringe. He may have added the key line that would have altered the course of the next few hours for them all. Even something so simple as, “But once you’ve taken the yellow, there’s only a limited window in which you must meet the blue. The longest they’d ever let anyone in the Deadspace had been twenty minutes.
“And Ira King never made it out again.”
Maddie soon began snoring in the chair. Lucas’ breathing grew heavy. Kurt bided his time, waited until he was sure they were both gone, moved towards the syringe at a snail’s pace, and held the yellow needle at eye level, watching the little bubbles float around in the tube.
41
Frieda stirred in her bed. More for the silence that now fell over the house than the din of excited voices that had been babbling away a short while ago. That had been somewhat soothing. Despite the intrusion of these strangers into her house, it was nice to hear human voices again, not just the cries of the monster people that lurked outside her house.
She rolled over, gingerly stepped across the landing and went downstairs, eyes now keen in the darkness. Everything was as it should be. The photos of her mother hanging lopsidedly on the wall, the neat row of shoes lined up beneath the empty coat rack. It was all there.
So why did she feel uneasy? Was it the strangers?
No.
It wasn’t that the people weren’t nice. Sure, the initial shock of seeing a madman race through her house with a boy thrown over his shoulder was a bit too much too quickly, but even Frieda could tell that they meant her no harm. Especially the blonde lady. She seemed nice. She had hugged her like her mummy had before just a few days ago. The older man had even carried her to bed. She hadn’t even been asleep at that point (although that’s not to say that sleep wasn’t far around the corner), but it was a trick that she remembered trying with her father years ago when he’d carry her from the car and up to bed.
It was nice to have that again, even for a moment.
But now they were quiet. They might even be gone for all she knew. Thanks for the flying visit but we’ve got places to go, people to see. Cheers for the cookies.
The thought of it made her sad.
She poked her head around the corner. They were there. The man called Lucas sat in an L shape, head flopped backwards onto the sofa. Maddie curled up like a kitty on her father’s armchair.
The boy, Kurt, lay on the sofa still. Frieda felt bad for him. It looked like he was in bad shape. She had tried to ignore it but there were little dark marks on her hallway carpet that hadn’t been there before they had arrived. It had to have been the boy’s blood. She wondered how many bones were broken. Whether the fact he had been hit by a car meant that soon he would turn into one of the monster people. There was no way to explain their transformation. She hadn’t seen it for herself but she had heard it all.
She shook her head, trying not to imagine a monster-daddy chasing a scared mummy.
At least mummy would be back soon… she hoped.
Frieda smiled at them all, glad to have some company again. It had been lonely the last few days. Frieda had worked her way through the stocks of food, wondering when she’d get to a point where she’d have to brave a trip to the shops. The idea made her shiver.
She turned to head back upstairs as a yawn took her, noticing then the glint of something in the centre of Kurt’s chest. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say that it looked like when Lucas had plunged the needle and woken Kurt up. Only…
Frieda leaned closer, clapped her hands to her face, and screamed.
Part 5
The Reunion
42
It was early morning. Though, still dark enough to be considered night, the birdsong had already started. It found its way through the open window along with the cooling breeze. Anita’s bedroom faced to the west – both a blessing and a curse. The views over High Point were just one of the reasons she had chosen the slightly smaller bedroom as her own. But, dear Lord, did that bugger trap the heat.
Not that that would have helped her sleep. Though she had gone to bed early that night, she had been unable to shut off her mind. The last couple of days had been surreal, what with the resurgence of the RevitaGo formula turning half of the East Coast into strange, animalistic versions of themselves. She had tried to pay attention to the news, but most stations now had fizzled into static, TVs only picking up stations from central and west America, each news anchor playing a version of Chinese whispers as the world tried to make sense of what was happening. There were still one or two AM radio stations that Sammi had managed to find and inform Anita of, but of those stations the majority sounded like scared men and women with little to no experience in audio production, cowering in their basements and sending out SOSs.
How the hell was Anita supposed to sleep?
The worst part of it all – the part her mind kept flashing back to – was Miguel’s part in it all. They had taken a huge risk introducing him to the circle, but the fact was they needed numbers. They needed muscle. They needed someone. Yet, after yesterday’s performance, seeing the way Miguel had been so jacked up and eager to take a visit back into the Deadspace had been an eye opener. It had taken her back to the days when the Revivers slept outside in that large tent out near Rattlesnake Mountain. How young had they been then? It was a different life. But she had remembered that same amped up attitude as Maddie, Fred, Lucas, a
nd Ira had dipped in and out of the Deadspace as though it were a swimming pool. Even Sammi – she hated to admit – had had her fair play, although, being considerably older than the rest, Sammi never quite showed it the same.
That was part of the reason Anita had never wanted to experiment herself. She had thought about it, of course. But after the rest of the gang began to develop those marks on their chest, she didn’t fancy the deformation for herself. No one had been able to explain it. It just was. And then after Ira…
Well, let’s just say there was no way back for her after that.
Anita sat up, piled the pillows behind her and stared into the gloom. She reached for her water on the side table and took a long gulp, steadying her breaths to calm her as she had learned years ago.
They had all been affected in some way, she supposed. Ira’s death had hit them all. Though no one had ever liked to call it such, Ira’s cover up had been a big project in itself. Enough to take a toll on Lucas and send him packing. Enough to end the project once and for all.
Who knows where they’d be now if it had continued?
A short while later, Anita found herself on the floor doing press-ups, burpees, crunches, anything to wear her out and help her sleep. When that didn’t seem to work, she threw on her dressing gown, headed downstairs and tried the TV again.
Static. Static. Static. A multicoloured, striped box with the legend: Programme Interrupted. Still nothing from local stations.
It was all a wonder really that the RevitaGo mist hadn’t made it this far. Sure, she’d seen a vague tint in the condensation in the mornings, maybe some on the windowsills and edging car bonnets, but nothing compared to what Virginia had apparently experienced. There had been a part of Anita that had worried when the man arrived at the gates, but so far it had seemed an isolated incident. The rest of High Point, though surprisingly quiet for the day of the week, had seemed unaffected.
If only Anita knew that, half a mile away, a steadily increasing concentration of RevitaGo was currently working its way through the water systems, gathering in the reservoir tanks as it propelled through taps and into houses.
*
In a small, two-bedroom maisonette on the other side of High Point, Jennifer Rivera – the lady Anita had encountered at the zebra crossing – lay snoring soundly. Next to her, her husband, Archie, lay on his front, tongue lolled out to the side, soaking moisture into the pillow as he slept, dreaming of his assistant and the brief encounter they’d had earlier that day in the stationery cupboard. Beside them both, the little Moses basket with baby Marie tucked up inside began to rock side to side.
Ordinarily, Marie’s gurgles were soothing to them both, and indeed, earlier that night Marie had babbled playfully, punching her arms uncontrollably in the air in the way that babies do. Jennifer had stroked a warm hand over Marie’s head, run a finger across the bridge of her nose and down, lifted her hand, and repeated until Marie’s eyes closed and she had fallen asleep.
Now, Marie was wide awake. Her gurgles turned to quiet growls. The whites of her eyes now parchment yellow. Excess dribble leaking from the side of her mouth as tiny black veins began to creep along her skin.
*
A couple blocks down from the Riveras’, Laura Crouch was sat at her computer desk, eyes peeled open from several cups of black coffee that she had demolished over the last hour. The light in her room was off, yet the vivid flashing imagery of her computer screen lit up the room like a rave. The chair that she had been sat on for close to three hours creaked beneath her, and she occasionally had to wipe away the condensation that gathered on the computer screen from her heavy breathing.
She had been warned against computer gaming. Not three months ago her mother had sat Laura down and given her the cautionary tale of what computer addiction can be, how it begins, and what it leads to.
“Look at what it did to your father,” her mother had said, taking a deep sip of her coffee and leaning across the table to hold a hand that Laura withdrew.
Sure her father had developed a slight addiction to computer gaming. Anyone could see that. Sure she had seen the decline over the years as her father devoted more and more to his spare hours wrapped up on his laptop or in the study late in the night. Occasionally she heard his rage-filled shouts as he’d yell profanities at the screen, words intended for players that would never hear them, sometimes going so far as to hurl the monitor on the floor and demand that mother buy a new one while he was at work the next day.
It had been awful to hear those arguments. But, like her father had said in the note on the day he left, without all those hours invested in World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, hell, even Super Mario Kart, he would never have been able to pursue his dream which he’d held since he was a boy. To become a computer games tester.
“Sony can fucking take him,” her mother had said, crumpling the letter and running from the room in tears.
Laura had been cautious at first. Her addiction had begun with a simple game installed on her phone, egged on by Natasha and Kelly, her high school besties. A mind-numbing exploit in which Laura simply needed to tap the phone to make the bird fly, avoiding obstacles and earning points.
“It’s sooo much fun, LC. You seriously got to give it a go.”
“Go on, please. See if you can beat my score.”
It took three days to triple Kelly’s highest score. Another hour after that to double Natasha’s. A fire burned within her and soon she held the highest score in Oakland High School.
Then came consoles.
Then came the PC game era.
Now, as Laura dabbed a manky tissue at the screen and rapidly tapped her mouse to destroy a series of attackers that had invaded her stronghold, she had been taken. No way back now. Even her mother had given in, buying her daughter the latest headphone kit, the best graphics card, the biggest monitor she could afford.
At least it would buy her mother some quiet.
The bedroom door creaked open, a line of light growing to a thick wedge. Laura’s eyes flickered back and forth across the screen, unaware of the person entering her room. Unable to hear through the headphone’s padding. Unable to see from residual screen burn.
Her mother looked around the room, dazed. Her mouth dripping wet, toothpaste froth gathered at the corners.
*
Jonah didn’t snore. Not anymore. He had a little white patch that stuck to his nose to see to that. An odd shaped sticky piece of material that smelled vaguely of menthol. To begin with, it had been nice. Now he was sick of the smell of mints.
He did, however, shake in his sleep. At first, it was just an arm twitch, brought up by the vivid dreams that were taking over in REM sleep. About half an hour ago he had felt the sensation as though he were falling and jolted awake, eyes wide, small beads of sweat on his forehead. There had been a pounding in his head and his throat was sandpaper dry.
A quick trip to the bathroom, several gulps of water, and a short piss later, and he wiped his mouth and clambered back into bed.
Jonah was asleep in minutes.
He had always been blessed in that way, he supposed. It wasn’t that he was a lazy person. In fact, quite the opposite. Jonah ran his own marketing consultation business from home, making dollars on the internet. His days were filled with endless calls, meetings, spreadsheets, complaints, and celebrations. After his first year of running his own at-home empire, he had taken a local employee on part-time. A chap by the name of Terrence Wilkins. A few months later, and a huge increase in his monthly income and Terrence shook hands with Jonah and became full-time.
He had never imagined that that handshake would be the start of something beautiful. For, several months later, a period filled with confused feelings, more prolonged handshakes and hugs than he could count, and a drunken weekend in Greensboro, they had become something of an item.
Jonah shook again. His whole body convulsing as he smiled sweetly. His dreams awash with the naughty things that he and Terrence had done to each
other in the changing rooms of the local swimming facility just the day before. The colours of the dream growing brighter, the power of his imagination adding a third person to the equation. The pool boy they had joked about on the drive home.
When the change in the dream eventually came, and the telltale veins began to grow, Jonah was already too far gone. He wasn’t even aware of the change, only that his dream grew darker. His body in the real world lashed and punched. His jaw clenched and snapped. But the last thing to get taken by the toxin in the water stream, was his glorious dream, as he high-fived Terrence and the boy between them both grunted and gagged.
*
Marie Rivera, Jonah Collins, Mrs Crouch, and a couple dozen others that had made the mistake of drinking the water that evening, all felt the pull at once. There was an invisible hook tugging on every part of their being, drawing them to a central force. Jonah and Mrs Crouch walked out of their homes and into the dark streets, joining the throng as they left their houses and followed their impulse. Little Marie screeched, awoke her parents in a hurry, then, when presented with Jennifer’s breast to feed on, took a gummy bite that pinched and drew blood.
Mummy and daddy took to the streets soon after, the feral crowd growing one by one, heading towards the High Point medical practice. They could all make out his shape, a being drawing them from the Deadspace. The little latin man that ran through the doors as though they were playthings.
*
The phone rang. Anita put down the book she had been trying to read for half an hour, only registering the first line again and again, and took the phone call. Sammi spoke hurriedly on the other side of the line.
“Anita, didn’t wake you did I?”
“Does it matter? What’s up?”
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