by Sean Platt
Boricio tore the sheet from her and let it drape off the bed. Her legs were still bandaged, both of them in casts from her knees to her feet, with only her toes showing. Rose began to wiggle her toes and laughed hysterically.
Williams said, “What does it feel like, Rose? What’s happening right now?”
She couldn’t stop smiling. Her face was pink and soft and starting to glow. “It feels warm everywhere inside my body, almost hot. But not quite painful. Like an itching burn.”
“But good, right?” Boricio asked, thrilled with how much vitality Rose was speaking.
“Oh, God, Baby, yes!” she said, her voice stronger. “I already feel a million times better!”
Boricio’s voice was a cracked whisper of disbelief. “Baby?” he said. “Can you remember me?”
“Yes,” she said, crying and nodding, “You were planning a special day for me, weren’t you?” With a playful smile Boricio couldn’t believe he was seeing, Rose said, “Was this what you had in mind?”
Boricio erupted into laughter, then dropped her hand and pulled her into an embrace before he showered her with kisses. He smothered Rose’s right cheek, then turned from her to Williams and threw his arms around the doctor.
“I love you, man,” he said. “And I’ll never forget this. I know you didn’t have to … ”
Boricio’s thank you was severed by a sudden scream from Rose.
The two men turned to see her entire body shaking violently as if having a seizure of some kind.
“What’s happening, Doc?!” Boricio screamed.
“I don’t know,” Williams cried, rushing toward the computer, which was monitoring her vitals. Lines were racing up and down in zigzags when Boricio glanced over, before turning back to Rose and trying to calm her while holding her down so she didn’t launch off the bed.
She continued to shake until she fell suddenly still, and her eyes closed as if she might never open them again.
“Someone get the fuck in here and help!” Boricio screamed, slamming his palm on the red ALERT button on the side of her bed. “We need help in here, NOW!”
A trio of doctors rushed inside Rose’s room and pushed Boricio aside, where he stood helplessly, watching as the doctors tried to revive her.
As he stared, frozen in fear, he found himself praying to God to please, please save his soul mate.
Boricio couldn’t watch, so he turned away, and didn’t turn back until he heard the blood-bleaching scream that erupted from her.
Boricio ran back to her bedside, thrusting himself between the doctors surrounding her, trying to keep them from hurting her any more than they already were. Rose was sitting straight up, her eyes wide open and ebony, as an inky blackness spread across her face and then down her entire body. She opened her mouth, but nothing poured forth for a long half minute until her silence suddenly screamed into a howl; an unholy, inhuman shriek.
Something started to slither beneath her flesh all at once like a million snakes moving beneath her skin.
Boricio screamed, trying to move toward her, though he had no idea what he’d do once he’d reach her. If he could just reach her, however, he thought somehow he could help. But the three doctors began to drag him back, trying to get him out of the room. Boricio knocked one to the floor, then ran back to Rose’s bed, just in time to see her beautiful hair turn as black as her slippery skin, then fall from her scalp in clumps on the sheet as she thrashed in the bed. Dr. Williams shoved Boricio aside and shoved her down, screaming for security.
Boricio started to move toward the bed, but a hand slapped him from behind, and spun him around. It was Will, his eyes wide and terrified.
“My Lord, Boricio, what have you done?!”
Thirty-Three
Ed Keenan
Black Mountain, Georgia
March 2012
FIVE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT …
The van had left the morning light, trading it for the dark tunnel leading into Black Mountain.
Ed couldn’t see what was happening, lying in the back of the van and pretending to be asleep, and was too banged up to care too much at the moment, anyway. Though Lisa had removed the handcuffs from both him and Brent, Ed had no illusions of freedom — and wouldn’t until he finally had the chance to speak to someone in charge.
Ed was confident that given the state of the world, he’d be able to work something out with whoever it was who sat behind the biggest desk at Black Mountain. He was a commodity the higher-ups wouldn’t easily dismiss, so long as he showed them he was open to a deal. Which, of course, he was.
Ed wasn’t interested in sides — Black Island or Black Mountain. Nor did he care whatever the hell they happened to be at odds over. His only concern was ensuring the safety of his daughter, Jade, along with Teagan and her child, assuming that she had safely delivered her child.
Black Island had taken his people hostage in order to get him to work for them. If Black Mountain could make the same offer of safety for Jade and Teagan, he’d switch sides in a second. Ed learned long ago that allegiance to flags was meaningless because the players behind the flags were an ever-changing merry-go-round, each with their own agendas, which had more to do with self-preservation than ideals.
But any thoughts of switching sides were a bit premature.
Ed still didn’t know what in the hell he was dealing with. So far, his impressions of Black Mountain were based solely on Lisa and her crew, which included a child and a team who had been blasted to memory out in the field. It was easy enough for Ed’s confidence in the Black Mountain operation to crumble under the weight of what he’d witnessed, but he didn’t have all the information, and knew underestimating an organization based on a first impression could be a mistake.
If Black Island was concerned about Black Mountain, they had to have a decent reason. It was certainly possible that the rest of the organization was professional, and that Lisa and her crew were merely the most recent recruits. It wasn’t as if either Black Island or Black Mountain had a trained army ready to go when Oct. 15 went down: they were forced to make do with the groups they could gather together. In many ways, Ed was surprised Black Island had found so many capable people to fill the role of Guardsmen. There were, after all, only six island natives left over from The Event. Yet, Black Island managed to put together a decent group of Guardsmen. He wondered if Black Mountain had been similarly fortunate.
Maybe, Ed figured, Black Mountain was made up of more people from this alternate Earth. If Black Mountain had managed to shelter more of its natives from the Oct. 15 disaster, then perhaps their institutional memory was stronger. And if that were all true, they were likely more organized and stronger than Black Island operations.
Ed opened his eyes, just a slit thin enough to see through. The tunnel was dimly lit, enough so he could see Lisa driving the van, her eyes as straight as the tunnel. The Prophet sat beside her, his eyes on the same nothing ahead of them.
Ed was surprised they’d made it through the storm with only Rojas as a casualty, though it seemed like Brent was almost trying to die, lying on the ground, about to take a nap while the tornado was seconds from scooping him up and twisting his breathing to a finish. Ed was too far away to help. Brent would’ve died if Lisa hadn’t yanked him to safety beneath the overpass.
Lisa was tough, sure, but she didn’t seem homegrown Guardsmen. Ed wondered what she’d done before being brought over. While she wasn’t Guardsmen material, she definitely wasn’t civilian. No way. She was too comfortable with both guns and orders. Maybe she was military, with a few tours in Afghanistan or Iraq. She seemed like someone used to dealing with assholes, and could handle herself just fine, even though Ed didn’t like her attitude.
Brent spotted the open slit in Ed’s eyes and started to say something to him, but Ed shook his head just enough for Brent to see, then closed his eyes and continued playing Rip van Winkle.
The van had eaten quite a bit of road before it came to a sharp, and seemingly unexpecte
d, stop.
“What the hell?” Lisa said.
Ed opened his eyes, waiting to see what would happen next.
Lisa was staring ahead, though Ed couldn’t see what she was looking at. Moments later, there was a voice was outside their window.
“Pull over into the bay, and stay in the van,” a man instructed sharply.
“Yes, sir,” Lisa said, turning the van to the right and merging slowly into another area branching off from the main tunnel. Ed couldn’t tell if Lisa had been expecting these instructions, but judging from her initial “what the hell,” he figured the routine had been changed since her last homecoming.
They were probably getting checked for signs of infection, like at the Island where it was standard operating procedure any time the Guardsmen returned from the field.
Lisa stopped the van and killed the engine.
“How many?” a man Ed couldn’t see asked from outside.
“Five, including four civilians.”
Four? So Billy was a recent addition to the group. Perhaps the kid hadn’t been lying when he said he’d been living with a man who was killed and he’d been left on his own.
“You step out first, and tell your people to stay put,” the man’s voice said outside the van.
Lisa turned and met Ed’s eyes.
“I heard,” he said.
“What’s happening?” The Prophet asked.
She hopped from the van and said, “Nothing to worry about. I’ll be right back.”
Lisa disappeared and left them to wait.
Ed sat up.
“What do you think is going on?” The Prophet repeated.
Ed said, “They’re probably gonna scan us all, one by one, to make sure we’re not infected.”
“Infected? With what?” the old man looked scared.
“The alien shit that’s goin’ around,” Ed said.
Is this guy really not putting one and one together?
“Alien stuff? You mean the demons?”
“Aliens, demons — whatever. They need to make sure none of us are infected and gonna turn into one of those damned things.”
The Prophet said nothing, but for the second time since he’d met the man, Ed got a weird feeling. Something in his eyes — something buried. The man called himself The Prophet, which meant he probably had all sorts of guilt — real or imagined — running through his narrow mind.
What are you hiding, old man?
“Were any of you bit?” Brent asked.
“No,” Ed said. “I don’t think so. Lisa got cut, but I’m not sure if it spreads by touch.”
“Shit,” Brent said, adjusting his position to look in the mirror on The Prophet’s side of the van.
“I can’t see anything.”
The van lacked rear windows, and he couldn’t hear anything, so Ed could only guess at what was happening outside. He figured he’d hear something soon enough if Lisa tested positive.
Instead, they heard a knock on one of the van’s back doors.
A man said, “Come out — slowly!”
Brent opened the door from inside. They stepped out and into a large, gray bay separated from the tunnel they’d been driving in, likely hundreds of feet beneath the mountain.
Three Guardsmen in black stood with their rifles; no sign of Lisa. Ed wondered if she’d been infected or if she were simply being debriefed. She was the only surviving member of her squad, so no doubt someone wanted to talk to her ASAP.
“One at a time,” said a young man with a buzz cut, pale skin, and a face marred by severe acne. “Step toward us and remove your shirts.”
The Prophet looked at Ed nervously, as if asking, is this customary?
No, Ed would have said, usually you get naked. Ed nodded as he peeled off his shirt. Brent followed immediately. The Prophet took seven days to remove his button-down white shirt.
They were instructed, one at a time, to step forward to a second Guardsman, a thin, Hispanic kid with a light wand, who couldn’t have been more than 16. The test, as Ed understood it, picked up on a specific light frequency emitted only by aliens and the infected.
Ed was tested first. He passed and was then ordered to wait beside a door at the end of the room. Brent followed, breathing a bottomless sounding sigh of relief when he was told to join Ed. The Prophet went next, sweating profusely as he approached the kid.
The light immediately glowed bright-blue and started to beep. The kid was so startled he nearly fell on his ass. The two other Guardsmen raised their rifles at The Prophet, who shook his head and started to stutter, “There’s g . . . got to be a m . . . m . . . mistake.”
The kid ran the light over The Prophet a second time, the light shaking in his hand. The light beeped again. “He’s infected!”
“Infected?” The Prophet said. “No, I’m not. I swear!”
“Come with us,” the Guardsmen said, approaching The Prophet with their guns aimed at him.
His eyes widened and for a moment, Ed thought the old man was going to try and run. But a second later his shoulders slumped in resignation.
“Please,” he said, turning to Ed and Brent. “Tell them I’m with you. I’m not infected.”
“I’m sorry,” Ed said. “Just go with them. They’ll take care of you.”
“What are you going to do?” the old man asked.
“We’re just going to quarantine you, sir. It’s a precautionary thing while we do some secondary tests. You may be just fine, at which time we’ll release you to be with your friends.” The Guardsmen were far more polite than Ed had seen at Black Island, especially with how they treated their infected.
Ed knew it was a lie. The light test was never wrong. They were just placating him to get him to quietly follow — a necessary lie, and a kind one they didn’t need to offer. They could’ve just shot him right there on the spot.
The Guardsmen led The Prophet through the closer set of doors, leaving Ed and Brent alone with the kid, who was staring at his boots.
“So, what now?” Ed said.
“We’ll wait for them to come back, then you’ll be brought into Black Mountain for a full medical. And then someone will likely want to talk to you.”
The far door opened, and Lisa appeared with a tall, blond-haired man who reminded Ed of an ’80s-era Dolph Lundgren, and looked about as pleasant as when he played Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. Judging from the way she followed behind like an eager-to-please puppy, and the master sergeant’s stripes on the side of his uniform, Dolph was clearly her superior. Ed wondered if those stripes were earned before or after Oct. 15. Was he a real soldier or no different than the kid with the blue light?
Ed thought it funny how quickly people fell into line and deferred to someone with higher rank, even after the world vanished.
The world’s gone, but someone will always salute.
Ed used to find comfort in that brand of order. Hell, it helped him lead a group of Guardsmen on Black Island — soldiers who he saw earn their stripes on some harrowing missions into the center of the city’s slippery, black heart. But now that Ed was away from a leadership role, he found himself thinking back on the past few years, and how power created two things above all else: corruption and sheep.
Dolph stopped in front of Ed and Brent. He looked them up and down with cold, blue eyes. His badge read, Jung.
“Is this them?” he turned to Lisa, his voice edged with Swiss.
“Yes, sir.”
He turned his back and said, “Come with me.”
Ed and Brent followed with Lisa behind.
They were led through a set of double doors, down a long, rock-walled hall, then into a large cargo elevator.
The doors closed, and the elevator began its descent.
Jung stared at the elevator doors, confident enough to keep his back to the pair of variables, Ed and Brent. Ed wondered if he was really that confident, or if it was Lisa beside him that set the strength in his shoulders?
The elevator felt like it descended
forever, the temperature growing noticeably cooler as they dipped deeper into the mountain.
The elevator finally came to a stop, then opened to a wide, white — and brightly lit — sterile-looking hallway that looked like a cross between Black Island’s underground facility and a hospital.
Several gray doors lined either side of the hallway, though none had windows. Each had a single blue square with a number written in the middle.
Ed and Brent were led to a room halfway down the hall. As Jung stepped in front of the door it automatically slid open, revealing a large office with an impressive mahogany desk and a bookcase loaded with several volumes. Despite its fineries, the walls were an ignored shade of white.
A tall, red leather chair was behind the desk, facing the back of the room. Two smaller brown leather chairs sat in front of the desk. As Ed entered, the chair spun around and a bald man in black greeted them, smiling. Other than his lack of hair, long scar, and the black patch covering his left eye, he was a spitting image of the man Ed had been sent south to find: Boricio.
Boricio’s eye widened, as if he recognized one of the two, if not the both of them. But the moment passed almost immediately, and he instructed everyone to leave his office except for Ed and Brent, whom he invited to take the seats in front of him.
“So, I hear that you’re looking for me?” Boricio said, presenting the photo Ed was surprised to see Lisa still had.
“Well,” Ed said, “that depends. Are you from here or there?”
“There?” Boricio asked, though Ed saw in his eyes that he understood the reference.
“I’m looking for the Boricio from my Earth,” Ed said.
“Ah, so you’re not from here?” Boricio asked.
“No,” Ed said.
“That would explain why you don’t remember me.”
“Remember you?”
“Well, if you’re here from Black Island, I’m guessing you’ve met your twin, right?”
“Yes,” Ed said.
“And he sent you to find the Boricio from your world?”
“Yes,” Ed nodded.