by Sean Platt
“OK,” Paola said, taping the bandage and meeting her mom’s eyes. “Let’s go to the doctor.”
“No, you don’t have to go,” Mary said. “I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait, and I’m sure you have plenty to do.”
“No,” Paola said firmly. “I’m going with you, Mom. Don’t argue.” She unscrewed a bottle of Tylenol and handed two pills to Mary, followed by a bottle of water from the fridge. “Take these.”
Mary smiled, took the pills, then hugged Paola, “Thank you, Sweetie.”
Mary held their hug, feeling the iciness between them thaw. “OK, let’s go,” she said.
After sitting in the waiting room for nearly an hour, Paola could take it no longer. She approached the reception window, knocked, and asked, “How much longer will it be? My mom could lose her finger!”
The receptionist was a heavyset, older woman with short, red hair, who seemed like she was doing her best not to snap back at Paola. “The doctor will see your mother as soon as possible,” she said. “But we have to take patients on a first-come, first-served basis.”
The receptionist shot Mary a look, somewhere between apology and agitation. Mary shrugged meekly, lightly embarrassed; she didn’t know what Paola was going to do until it was too late to stop her.
Paola sat, fuming. “That’s just stupid. They should allow emergencies ahead of people who are just sick.”
Mary looked up, meek smile still on her face, this time making its way around to the waiting room’s other occupants and settling on an old man waiting for his wife, who’d gone back 15 minutes before. The old man either hadn’t heard Paola, or was too entranced in the news broadcast above the receptionist’s window to care. Some crazy story that had been looping on every channel all day about a woman who went nuts and attacked her friends while jogging.
“It’s OK,” Mary said, “They’ll see us soon enough.”
As if on cue, the nurse, a tall, young man with bright-blue eyes and blond hair stepped out, “Mrs. Olson?”
“About time,” Paola muttered as she grabbed her iPad and stood, following Mary into the back. They passed the old lady paying her bill and were directed to an open door. Mary was surprised when the nurse didn’t weigh her, and figured he must’ve heard Paola bitching, and wanted to hurry things along.
Mary sat on the examination table. Paola took one of the room’s two chairs.
“So, you cut your finger?” the nurse said, reading the paper Mary filled out while waiting, now in an open manila folder resting in the man’s hands.
“Yeah, I was cutting a cucumber and sliced right in. I feel so stupid,” she laughed. “It doesn’t hurt anymore, though. I took two Tylenol.”
The nurse then asked her if she was feeling any symptoms other than the slight pain, what medication she was taking, and a few other questions before leaving her and Paola to wait for the doctor. Mary repeated that she felt no pain and that she had taken Tylenol. The nurse said the doctor would be with them shortly, then left the room and closed the door.
As they waited, Paola was drawing something on the DrawCast app, though Mary could barely see what it was. Paola had been drawing since she was able to hold a crayon, often when sitting beside her mother as she worked, filling reams of 8 1/2 by 11-inch printer paper. Mary wondered if Paola’s interest in art would survive high school, or if she would find something else. She was already talking about the drama courses offered at the school, and the possibility of being an actress. Mary figured acting was an even longer shot than artist, but never discouraged her daughter’s interests. She tried hard not to be that sort of mother, and had, for the most part, succeeded.
The doctor knocked on the door, then entered: a thin woman, maybe in her early 40s, with dark hair and darker circles adding weight to her eyes. “Hello, I’m Dr. Farniss, how are you doing tonight?”
Mary held up her bandaged hand, “A bit klutzy, sliced my finger good. I think I need stitches.”
“OK,” Dr. Farniss said looking down at Mary’s file and confirming what the nurse had written.
“Let’s take a look, shall we?” Dr. Farniss took Mary’s hand and began pulling the tape. Mary watched as the doctor unraveled the dark, red-splotched bandage, cringing in anticipation, loath to see the wound.
The doctor pulled the last of the bandage away, confused. Mary’s eyes went wide. Her cut was gone, replaced by a tiny, pink scar. Her breath caught in her chest as the doctor brought Mary’s finger closer for inspection.
“When did you say you cut yourself?”
“About an hour and a half ago,” Mary said, baffled.
Paola stood up then came over. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s healed,” Dr. Farniss said, eying Mary skeptically. “Did you put anything on it?”
Mary, without even realizing she was going to, lied.
“Well, I put some cream on it, though I don’t remember what it was, something a friend told me would work wonders.”
“I’ll say,” Dr. Farniss said.
“Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought,” Mary almost whispered, feeling Paola’s confusion over the lie.
Mary hoped Paola wouldn’t say anything to contradict her.
“Well,” Dr. Farniss said, “I guess you don’t need stitches after all.”
“I feel so silly, Doc. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.” Mary was in a hurry to flee the doctor’s office — before she started asking questions. Fortunately, it was late, and the doctor looked ready for a bed, keeping her from inquiry.
“Well, just keep an eye on it, and call us, or your regular doctor, if there’s any changes, OK?”
“Will do, Doctor,” Mary said, thankful when she opened the door to leave.
As Mary stood and met Paola’s eyes, the doctor turned around, “Mrs. Olson?”
“Yes,” Mary said, suddenly certain the doctor had decided she needed some answers; this was just too weird to let go.
“If you think of it, can you call the office tomorrow and let me know what kind of cream you used? I’d love to check out anything that works this well.”
“Sure,” she lied, “first thing tomorrow.”
Back in the Volvo, heading home, Paola finally asked, “It was me, wasn’t it? I healed you? Just like Luca healed people.”
“I don’t know,” Mary said, though that’s definitely where her mind was wandering. “Maybe it wasn’t that bad.”
“Yes, it was that bad. I saw it, Mom.”
“I don’t know,” Mary said, her voice unable to hide her agitation, or fear.
Because they both knew what had happened when Luca had healed others: He aged, rapidly.
Mary looked at Paola in the car’s dark cabin, thinking she did look older.
No, no, it’s just my mind playing tricks on me. Stop it, stop it now before she figures out what you’re thinking.
Paola asked, without fear, “Do you think I did it? Do you think I can heal people like Luca?”
“I don’t know,” Mary said. “It was different when Luca did it. He went into a trance or something. You didn’t do anything like that. You barely touched my hand.”
“He also aged,” Paola said, flipping down the windshield visor mirror and studying her face.
“Stop it,” Mary said, “You didn’t age. And besides, Luca aged years, and while I know you’d love nothing more than to get your learner’s permit, you’re still just 13.”
Paola looked closer, squinting in the mirror, then looking at her hands. “You don’t think I aged at all?”
“No,” Mary said, clinging to her string of lies.
Six
Sullivan
Black Island Research Facility
September 2013
Sullivan stood outside the glass cell, deep in Black Island’s bowels, staring at the woman as she lay fetal on the cot. He fastened the seal on his yellow biosuit and glanced at the man standing beside him, looking down at a computer tablet and swiping through the file.
“Wha
t’s her name, again?” Sullivan asked Dr. Simpson.
“Eva Flores.”
Eva was the first person in the past six months’ seemingly random outbursts of violence whom authorities had managed to take alive. Sullivan was following his gut, which said this was somehow related to the alien infection, The Darkness, that Boricio Bishop had brought into this world when their world was overtaken.
He suspected that Boricio Bishop was gathering forces, could feel it. Sullivan wasn’t sure how he was doing it, or of his endgame. If it was a takeover, like the aliens had done on his home world, Sullivan had yet to see any supporting evidence. No visible infections, no mass, unexplained disappearances reported, no corpses piling the streets.
Yet, Sullivan, who had been touched by The Light, could feel a connection to The Darkness, could feel it here on this world, could sometimes feel its thoughts.
It was here and searching for the vials, Sullivan knew that much. The vials containing the alien in its purest form had crash landed on this world the same as the other. While on Sullivan’s world, the government had used and tested the vials on Black Island, this world’s version of Black Island seemed not to know anything about the vials.
It seemed as if they’d either never been found, or perhaps discovered by someone else who was keeping them secret. Sullivan spent his first months bringing Black Island Research Facility up to speed and explaining everything to them. They sent teams to Alaska, searching the crash site, but found nothing.
Some suggested that the vials weren’t even on this world. That just because the vials had been on the alternate Earth it didn’t mean they were here as well. While Sullivan believed this was possible, he thought it unlikely. The Darkness would not be here, otherwise. It needed the vials in order to grow stronger. It was, in its current form, too weak to spread as it had on the other world.
Sullivan looked at Eva, and knew she was somehow connected to The Darkness. He’d felt The Darkness thinking about her after The Event happened. The Darkness had seemed concerned about her, though Sullivan wasn’t sure why.
“You ready?” Dr. Simpson asked.
“Yes,” Sullivan said, punching a code on the wall beside the door.
The door slid open, and Sullivan stepped through.
Eva looked up, her eyes red and swollen and leaking. Her left arm was cuffed to a metal rung in the wall above her cot. She bristled as Sullivan stood three feet away, moving his eyes from his clipboard to her. “Do you know your name?” he asked.
She nodded, seemed to consider the question for a moment, then said, “Eva, Eva Flores.”
She looked so broken, something inside Sullivan softened. He looked down on her kindly, asking Eva what he already knew. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Eva shrugged.
“There is no wrong answer,” Sullivan promised. “Just say the last thing that seems clear in your mind. Not a maybe, but a certain memory.”
It took Eva another minute to find her voice, then she said, “I remember buckling Maria into her stroller. I was going to jog with my Pound the Pounds group down the trail through our neighborhood park.”
“Anything else?”
Another second, then, “It was pretty. The sun was bright, and the day was breezy.”
“Do you remember running?”
Eva scrunched her nose as if trying to pull a thought from somewhere deep.
“No,” she finally said. “I kissed my daughter on the forehead, tied my hair in a scrunchie … then nothing.”
Sullivan colored the blanks in her memory, but Eva was screaming before he finished, calling him a liar and many things worse. Sullivan waited for her to calm down, then set a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He looked in her eyes until he saw that she knew his words were true, then asked for permission to continue. Eva swallowed and nodded.
“Do you know this man?” Sullivan pointed to the glass and Dr. Simpson standing on the other side, holding a tablet against it. On the tablet was a picture of Boricio Wolfe, since they had no photos of Bishop. The image was doctored to show Boricio Wolfe bald, and wearing an eye patch. His eyes had been muted to an intelligent blaze rather than the one that gleamed with Wolfe’s insanity.
Eva studied the tablet, then after a minute slowly shook her head. Sullivan could tell she was lying. Could feel it.
“Are you sure?” Sullivan pushed.
Eva looked at the picture again. She shook her head, this time faster. Scared.
Sullivan said, “We know you’re lying, Mrs. Flores.” She said nothing, but her haunted eyes widened. He continued. “Unfortunately, we won’t be able to release you from custody until you’re straight with us. That means you won’t be seeing Maria or your husband.”
“I’m so sorry,” Eva said, her voice cracking to splinters. “I don’t know who that is, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Eva Flores started sobbing. “I don’t remember anything.”
Still calm, Sullivan took a step toward her. “You’re lying,” he repeated. “And as long as you continue to lie, we must consider you a danger to yourself and others. I’m sorry.”
Eva started to shake, softly at first, then her body fell into a horrible rhythm of violent bucking. As Sullivan fell a step back, Eva lunged at him, then growled and screamed as she slammed herself against a dam of air and the chain cuffing her to the wall clanged against the cot as she fell back.
Eva then yanked harder against the chain as Sullivan backed away farther from the rage, keeping his eyes fixed on hers. She yanked harder and growled louder, screaming in a curdle as her shoulder dislocated. She slobbered and snarled and chomped, lurching forward like a dog on a chain.
Eva then pulled hard so fast and hard, her arm ripped from its socket, and she was suddenly on Sullivan.
He fell back to the ground, drowning in panic as he tried pushing her from his body. The biosuit made it difficult to fight back. She was a demon unleashed, gnashing her teeth as if they were fangs and bearing her nails like claws.
She punched through his helmet, shattering the glass face. Sullivan screamed as shards collapsed through the mask. Even terrified, he felt thankful for his glasses, sparing his eyes from the lacerating glass falling into his flesh.
Sullivan lost his scream to a horrible choking as Eva’s mouth wrenched open, as if pried wide by the devil, and black, wet ropes of flesh billowed out from her mouth like tentacles searching for Sullivan’s.
He twisted his head away, looking for Dr. Simpson — no longer in sight.
“Help!” Sullivan cried out as The Darkness moved closer to his mouth. It touched his lips. He closed his mouth, clenching his teeth, desperate to keep it from infecting him.
The door opened, and a hot blast of fire swallowed Eva in a blaze. Fire spread to the front of Sullivan’s suit. He rolled, trying to douse it. Eva’s screams filled the chamber, echoing with her personal wail and the alien shriek he had heard too many times.
Ed Keenan stepped toward the woman, flamethrower in his hands, driving her back. Dr. Simpson ran in beside him and sprayed Sullivan’s suit with a fire hydrant, smothering the flames.
Sullivan stood, staring as the woman, now a dark husk in the fire, fell to the ground.
Keenan stepped out of the chamber, closed the door, and looked Sullivan up and down.
“Shit,” Keenan said, shaking his head. “You were right.”
Sullivan, for once, found no pleasure in victory.
He watched as the last of the creature’s skin ripped into ashy, black crinkles, wondering how many more were out there, hiding in humans.
Seven
Luca Harding
Luca sat in the back of the Maxima, silent. Anna sat beside him, relentlessly trying to get him to talk or play. She was holding her stuffed “Boo” — supposedly the cutest dog in the world — along with a second, tinier Boo. The two stuffed animals were having a long conversation that consisted of nothing but baby talk blended with the occasional barking. She was trying her hardest
to get Luca to join her. Sometimes he would, but he had to be in the mood, and right now he wasn’t at all.
Luca was depressed, and didn’t like how Mom kept glancing back at him in the rearview, so obviously worried. He wondered if Dad had told her anything about Johnny Thomas, or if she was just worried because she could see the upset all over his face.
Luca hated Johnny Thomas so, so much, but was still surprised when, for only a second, he wished Johnny would die.
Dad was home when Mom pulled into the driveway, which meant Luca’s afternoon would be awful, not because Dad would be mad — he wouldn’t be — but because he would ask what had happened at school with Johnny Thomas, and Luca would have to tell him, even though he didn’t want to.
Sure enough, Luca had only taken a single lick from his Fudgsicle when Dad asked, “So, what happened at school? Anything you want to talk about?”
Luca looked for Mom or Anna, but they were nowhere in the dining room or kitchen. Dad smiled and nodded, understanding like he always did, then went over to Luca, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and led him upstairs to his bedroom. He eased Luca to the bed, then sat beside him, like he had been that morning.
“So?” Dad said.
Luca took a minute to chew, wondering if he should tell a half truth or a whole one, then opened up and let everything spill.
“I tried not to let them bother me, Dad. I read the comic at recess, and stayed on the steps. I didn’t even play with Mason, since I knew Johnny Thomas and his stupid friends, Gus and Kiyor, would bother me. I even made it through lunch and gym. Then, after soccer, I tried to get out of the locker room as fast as I could so there wouldn’t be any trouble. I grabbed my clothes then went to the bathroom across the hall and got dressed, but when I was leaving, Johnny Thomas was there. So were Gus and Kiyor.”
Luca’s voice cracked, his lip quivered.