Tailored Realities, page 35
“Oh! Shi—” Nova said. “I mean, shoot! Sorry, Mom!” She put down the pan and scrambled for the broom.
This had happened already. On Monday. “Nova,” Lisa said, “is this some kind of prank?”
“Didn’t mean to! I’m nervous about practice. Sorry, sorry!” She moved to clean up, but Lisa took her by the shoulders, looking her in the eyes.
The girl tugged against the grip, eyes to the side, fingers twitching—as if trying to go through sweeping motions.
“Nova?” Lisa asked, feeling legitimate horror. That look on her daughter’s face was so unnatural, like she didn’t even see Lisa. “Nova!”
Nova focused on her, then cocked her head, as if seeing her for the first time. As soon as Lisa released Nova though, the girl jumped to clean in a flurry before gobbling up the eggs.
“Sorry, Mom!” Nova said. “Early morning practice for the recital, remember?” She beamed, back to her normal self, then took Lisa’s hands. “You’re going to come, right? Even if work is busy?”
“Coming … I already went…” It was distinct in Lisa’s mind. The sounds, sights, scents of the auditorium. Jazz piano echoing in the hall, fading to applause.
Could she have dreamed that?
“Not just to practices,” Nova said. “The actual recital!”
“Which is…”
“On Wednesday.”
“And today is…”
“Monday.” Nova rolled her eyes. “As if you don’t have every minute of your life scheduled.”
“You flub the ending of ‘A Night in Tunisia’…”
“I won’t flub anything,” Nova said, letting go and grabbing her backpack. Then she paused, before digging in her pocket and pulling out a red-coral bracelet.
Lisa’s hand went to her wrist, and the identical one she was already wearing.
“Here!” Nova said, giving the new one to her. “I made this for you.” Then she bit her lip, getting out a second. “I made one for Dane too. Will you … give it to him? To help him think about us.” Nova glanced down, holding them both out.
“Nova,” Lisa said, holding up her hand with the bracelet she was already wearing. “Nova.”
“I know, Mom,” the girl said with a sigh. “I know that you two … But please give it to him. It’s important I try.”
“Nova, look at my arm.” She tapped the bracelet, and Nova stared at it for a moment. Again, she cocked her head.
“How … did you get one already?”
“Something is going on, Nova,” Lisa said, lowering her arm. “Something very strange.”
Nova looked away. “Well, I think Dane will like one. Can you please give it to him?” She set both on the table. Then she turned back. “You don’t think … Dad will come this year … will he?”
“Nova, does it matter?” Lisa asked. “I’m telling you, something is wrong.”
“Yeah. If he comes, it would be wrong.” Nova heaved a sigh, but then perked up. As if … she’d completely forgotten the oddity about the bracelets, or she didn’t want to confront it. “But I suppose Dane will deal with him again! I should get going! Bye!” She scampered out.
Lisa sank into the chair, feet disturbing cereal puffs that Nova hadn’t fully cleaned up. That conversation had felt so strange, and … how … how had Lisa gotten home last night? With a frown, she called Dane, but it immediately went to voicemail because of his stupid smartphone with its anorexic battery. She started a text, but as she did, one came in from Nova’s father.
I suppose, it said, I’ll live with that.
She frowned, until she remembered texting him a few days ago, promising to record the recital for him—but suggesting it would be a bad idea for him to come in person. She scrolled up, and found the exact same text he’d just sent. Dated Monday, 6:52 AM. Just like this one was. Same date. Same time.
Heart beating more rapidly, she ran upstairs and checked the bed, then the floor next to it. There. Dane’s gun, on the floor. The one he’d given her out of the back of his car—she’d been holding it during the explosion. Shaking, she scrambled downstairs and made a furious drive to headquarters, arriving around seven thirty, having beaten most of the traffic.
She burst in and hurried to her office, rushing up to Rowna—who was in early. Something she never did on Tuesdays or Thursdays, when she drove carpool for her kids. If she was here …
“Rowna,” Lisa said.
Rowna kept typing.
“Rowna?” Lisa said, feeling something in her beginning to crack. “Please?”
The woman shook, then glanced at Lisa and started. “Commander! You should know better than to sneak up on an armed woman like that.” She said it with a smile, but Lisa’s nerves were fraying … and Rowna frowned soon after. “Commander?”
“The Goffrey case.”
“We’re close,” Rowna said. “Just need one of the Kim brothers to break. I’ll have a testimony on your desk the moment it happens. But you’ll have to persuade the DA this is enough. Good luck with that, Commander.”
Lisa stood, feeling a chill down to her bones. Nearby, none of the passing officers even looked at her—it was as if she were invisible. Rowna went back to her typing, and started again when she turned and saw Lisa there. Like she’d forgotten.
Davis walked in with coffee for his team. Monday was his day. The whiteboard had a perfect replica of Lisa’s notes from Saturday, the ones she’d erased on Tuesday night to outline their battle plan for the actual arrest. She glanced at her office. Glass was cracked in the door. They’d replaced that … on Wednesday …
Oh, heck …
“Dane,” she whispered. She put a hand on Rowna’s shoulder, which startled her again.
“Commander?” Rowna said. “Still worried about the case?”
“Dane,” Lisa said. “Is he in?”
“Commander … it’s before noon. What do you think?”
Lisa turned and walked out, faster with each step, until something even more unnerving happened. People started noticing her and turning toward her, smiling and waving, saying good morning. Because …
Because it was 7:48—around when she normally arrived at the office. Probably the exact time she’d arrived on Monday. The … other Monday. Now that she was supposed to be here, people suddenly began interacting with her like normal.
But this was anything but normal. She fled.
Back in her car, she drove to Dane’s apartment, which wasn’t too far—but there was more traffic on the road now, and people kept almost hitting her. It happened five times. After the fifth car swerved away and honked, Lisa parked and walked the last three blocks.
She had to try twice to get Tim, the beanpole of a doorman, to notice her. “Ah, Miss Lisa,” he eventually said.
“Dane,” she said, sweating. “Has he come out today?”
“Nope, Miss Lisa,” Tim said. “After all, it’s—”
“—Before noon. Yes, I know.”
She rushed past the broken elevator—the thing had been out of service for years—and bounded up the steps to the second floor. Breathing deeply, she forced herself to adopt a semblance of calm. Something had happened at that house, with the “device.” What was it the woman had said at the end? That they were going to send the entire building through … what? A hole of some sort?
Activating it hadn’t destroyed the city, fortunately, but something had happened. Something incredible, something mind-breakingly strange. Either that, or Lisa was going insane.
She used the spare key—she kept meaning to give it back—to get in. The place had a distinct scent; call it l’eau d’bachelor. Mingling odors of leftover Chinese, beer cans in the recycling, and dirty clothing piled in the tiny laundry room. Dane wasn’t slovenly—in her beat days, she’d seen slovenly, and beyond. He was average, at least for people who lived on their own and didn’t often have visitors.
She pushed open the bedroom door, and … he wasn’t there. Bed was messy, but that didn’t mean much. His phone was gone though, not in its charging stand—and more importantly, his gun was missing. He normally hung his sidearm in a holster from a peg by his bed. He only locked it away when someone was staying over, so if it was gone, it meant something.
Either he had come back and was having the same odd experiences as Lisa, but hadn’t gone into the office or tried to call her. Or … or he hadn’t arrived back here as she had.
Feeling confused, exhausted, and overwhelmed, Lisa sat quietly on the corner of his bed. Somehow, impossibly, that white light had sent her to her home three days into the past.
But where … or … or when … had it sent Dane?
Five
Sometime After Moment Zero
Dane groaned, feeling like the bits of gravel that got stuck between the grooves in the soles of combat boots. Blinking, he found himself on the hard floor, covered in dust. He sat up and sent it streaming off him, puffing up, floating lazily through afternoon light from a single dirty window.
… His window?
This was his bedroom, except the bookshelves had fallen from the walls, and their contents lay on the floor, where they seemed to be decomposing. Books half crumbled. A vase broken from the fall—but some pieces of it having become granulated.
He scrambled to his feet. That … seemed to be the remnants of his bed. Chunks of broken wood, sheets that tore like spiderwebs. He brushed off the dust, utterly dumbfounded, then spotted something in the debris at his feet. He fished out his gun, which was solid, and held the grip for support.
It was so quiet. Life downtown was never quiet. Occasional shouting was a sign all was well, and sirens were his nightly serenade. He stumbled to the window and leaned against the sill, and the wood there cracked beneath his left hand.
… The hell? he thought, raising his hand, and looked at the impressions he’d made in the sill. Then, he holstered his weapon and carefully used his sleeve to wipe the glass—which fell out of the window at his touch. Dane winced at the stark sound of it shattering below, like a gunshot in a quiet theater.
He didn’t dwell on that long, however, as …
Damn …
Along his street, the buildings were mostly still standing, but the cars lay in rusted heaps. Some in the center of the road, others parked, frozen as if they’d all stopped working at the same moment—then had been left for centuries to decay. Hollow windows. Stumps instead of trees. Fallen streetlights, leaving rust-red lines on the ground. And silence.
So much silence.
“What,” he whispered, “did that bomb do?”
He suddenly didn’t feel very safe on the second story of a building. Fortunately, his apartment was basically a concrete box—and though his carpet was tatters and dust, the floor was more solid. He walked to his door, tried to open it—but just pulled the doorknob off, the mechanism inside crumbling. Even the doorknob, which was brass, flaked a little—and he could scrape it with his fingernail.
That wasn’t normal decay. Brass lasted, like, forever, right? They still had Roman armor made from the stuff, didn’t they? He put his hand to his head, and pushed through the door—breaking it to splinters—then walked through his kitchen toward the door into the hallway. That one was already gone—blown inward, judging by the remains.
The lights weren’t working, of course, but unfortunately—after some rummaging in his rooms—he found that his flashlight was rusted out and no use. He crept back to the hallway outside, which was dark save for sunlight drilling through holes in the far wall. Like a shotgun pattern. He turned right and walked toward the stairs, the floor strong underfoot. Good old concrete and rebar. At the stairwell, he edged down a few steps, but the darkness here was absolute. He slipped his phone out of his cargo pocket … only to find a black screen with a blinking dead-battery sign.
Right. He zipped it back in, then—with a deep breath—carefully felt his way down, worried that at any moment he was going to step onto a patch of stairs that had crumbled away. Only one story, he told himself. Even if you fall, it won’t be that far. Besides, he had no other choice. The fire escape seemed to have rusted away, and the elevator never had worked, not that he’d trust it in this situation anyway.
Pulse pounding, he traversed the blackness, each step feeling like it was into some infinite pool of nothing. The only sound his frantically beating heart. He had trouble using his pulse to find the calm of a firing range—at least there, he could see his targets and execute on his training. Here … he just had to take step after step, hand flat against the concrete wall, tapping down with a toe. Each time, he felt he had to stretch too far before finally finding the next step.
It was pure relief when he spotted a sliver of light, and he probably took the last few steps too quickly in his haste to reach it. He emerged into the lobby, which was dim—but lit by sunlight from out front.
Hell, he thought. That was way, way too disturbing. He was in some kind of strange futuristic hellscape … and walking down a stairwell was what frightened him? He hurried through the dust-strewn lobby, then froze. Footprints. All over the floor here. For that much dust to gather … it felt like the lobby had been left desolate for … centuries?
Damn. Could it have been centuries?
Uneasy that someone had been here recently enough to leave those footprints, he slid his sidearm out, inspecting the shadowed lumps of furniture and the fallen front desk. Then, one of those lumps opened glowing white eyes.
Dane’s heart tried to extract itself from his chest as he backed up, cursing softly, and brought his gun to bear on the shadow, which stood up. It became an emaciated man in tattered remnants of clothing. Tall, with a comb-over …
“Tim?” Dane whispered, naming the doorman. “Hell, Tim. What happened to you? Why do you…”
Why do you have glowing eyes?
Tim focused on him, then whispered six chilling words. “I can feel your warmth, Dane.”
Dane took another step backward, but his heel hit the wall—the only thing behind him was that hollow stairwell. He kept his gun on Tim, who advanced.
“You’re still warm,” Tim rasped. “Share your heat. I need it.”
“Stop, Tim. Don’t move. Show me your hands.”
“I need it.”
“DON’T TAKE ANOTHER STEP!”
Those glowing eyes fixed on him, and something stretched out of Tim’s side: a shimmering figure, a screaming face and torso, transparent and white—as if trying to rip free. That … that was Mrs. Banler. The woman from three doors down.
Tim surged forward.
Dane fired, two shots, right at the man’s core—as per training.
They didn’t do anything.
Tim hit a moment later, slapping aside Dane’s gun with a strength those twigs of arms shouldn’t have been able to produce. Dane was shoved back against the wall, scrambling to reposition his gun with one hand while holding off Tim with the other. That … spirit … of Mrs. Banler kept trying to pull free, face a howling mask of pain, as Tim planted a hand around Dane’s neck.
The touch pulled something from Dane, sending a chill through his body. Like the same emotion of extreme alarm he’d felt jolt through him when he’d heard his mother was in the hospital, but magnified to the square. Dane grunted, and Tim’s eyes widened, glowing brighter.
Fortunately, that style of hold wasn’t a particularly effective one. Despite the mounting enervation, Dane found his MMA training. Holster the gun, grab under the arm, shift his weight, and …
Dane executed a throw, tossing Tim into the remnants of the front desk. The man rolled through splinters, grunting. Dane stumbled, breathing deeply. He reached for his gun again, but …
Damn. Two shots directly to the core hadn’t done a thing.
Tim screamed and scrambled to his feet. Dane went against training and grabbed Tim in hand-to-hand again, trying to put the man into a hold—which proved difficult. Not only did touching the man’s skin provoke that same terrible chilling sensation, but Tim was strong. Stronger than any of Dane’s instructors.
Tim broke the grip and shoved Dane against the wall. A kick to the chest at least sent Tim backward. He was strong, but he had the body weight of a scarecrow.
Not going to win a long fight against him regardless, Dane thought, noting how easily Tim jumped back up, while Dane already felt worn out. Dane glanced to the side, then grunted, pushed off the wall, and met Tim in the middle of the room, delivering a punch to his face. That last part had been mostly instinct, as Tim was open and the boxing part of Dane’s training wanted to punish—but it worked.
Two bullets hadn’t done a thing, but fist-to-face seemed to daze Tim. So Dane followed with two more, wishing he had gear, feeling cold at each touch. With a final move, Dane grabbed the doorman by one arm, then turned and heaved—tossing him straight through the wooden panel that blocked the elevator shaft. It had been left there by the people working on it, but was as frail as anything else, and Tim smashed right through it.
He howled and plunged into the basement, where the sound cut off abruptly.
Dane fell to his knees, puffing, feeling worse than any sparring match had left him. He was exposed kneeling there though, and there were stairs up from below. So he heaved to his feet and checked the elevator shaft.
Tim’s body lay twisted and broken at the bottom, visible by the cool white light coming off it, vaporizing slowly—the image of the screaming woman vanishing. Tim looked like … like he’d fallen straight on his head. Importantly, he didn’t get up.
“Well,” Dane said, hands on his knees, breathing deeply. “Finally got to use that elevator for something…” He turned about, checking the other shadows—but no white-eyed monstrosities waited for him. He looked down at Tim again, feeling sick. Not just from the touch and the fight, but … that was Tim, or some remnant of him. They’d gone out drinking together. Now …
Now the final bits of light faded from the man, the corpse succumbing completely to the darkness.
Fortunately, Dane felt his strength return—his body warming up. Whatever that touch had done to him didn’t seem permanent, and he felt almost normal—save for his tension from the fight—as he inched out of the building and checked the street in both directions. His car wasn’t in its parking spot. Hell, it was probably decomposing on the street near the house with the explosion.
This had happened already. On Monday. “Nova,” Lisa said, “is this some kind of prank?”
“Didn’t mean to! I’m nervous about practice. Sorry, sorry!” She moved to clean up, but Lisa took her by the shoulders, looking her in the eyes.
The girl tugged against the grip, eyes to the side, fingers twitching—as if trying to go through sweeping motions.
“Nova?” Lisa asked, feeling legitimate horror. That look on her daughter’s face was so unnatural, like she didn’t even see Lisa. “Nova!”
Nova focused on her, then cocked her head, as if seeing her for the first time. As soon as Lisa released Nova though, the girl jumped to clean in a flurry before gobbling up the eggs.
“Sorry, Mom!” Nova said. “Early morning practice for the recital, remember?” She beamed, back to her normal self, then took Lisa’s hands. “You’re going to come, right? Even if work is busy?”
“Coming … I already went…” It was distinct in Lisa’s mind. The sounds, sights, scents of the auditorium. Jazz piano echoing in the hall, fading to applause.
Could she have dreamed that?
“Not just to practices,” Nova said. “The actual recital!”
“Which is…”
“On Wednesday.”
“And today is…”
“Monday.” Nova rolled her eyes. “As if you don’t have every minute of your life scheduled.”
“You flub the ending of ‘A Night in Tunisia’…”
“I won’t flub anything,” Nova said, letting go and grabbing her backpack. Then she paused, before digging in her pocket and pulling out a red-coral bracelet.
Lisa’s hand went to her wrist, and the identical one she was already wearing.
“Here!” Nova said, giving the new one to her. “I made this for you.” Then she bit her lip, getting out a second. “I made one for Dane too. Will you … give it to him? To help him think about us.” Nova glanced down, holding them both out.
“Nova,” Lisa said, holding up her hand with the bracelet she was already wearing. “Nova.”
“I know, Mom,” the girl said with a sigh. “I know that you two … But please give it to him. It’s important I try.”
“Nova, look at my arm.” She tapped the bracelet, and Nova stared at it for a moment. Again, she cocked her head.
“How … did you get one already?”
“Something is going on, Nova,” Lisa said, lowering her arm. “Something very strange.”
Nova looked away. “Well, I think Dane will like one. Can you please give it to him?” She set both on the table. Then she turned back. “You don’t think … Dad will come this year … will he?”
“Nova, does it matter?” Lisa asked. “I’m telling you, something is wrong.”
“Yeah. If he comes, it would be wrong.” Nova heaved a sigh, but then perked up. As if … she’d completely forgotten the oddity about the bracelets, or she didn’t want to confront it. “But I suppose Dane will deal with him again! I should get going! Bye!” She scampered out.
Lisa sank into the chair, feet disturbing cereal puffs that Nova hadn’t fully cleaned up. That conversation had felt so strange, and … how … how had Lisa gotten home last night? With a frown, she called Dane, but it immediately went to voicemail because of his stupid smartphone with its anorexic battery. She started a text, but as she did, one came in from Nova’s father.
I suppose, it said, I’ll live with that.
She frowned, until she remembered texting him a few days ago, promising to record the recital for him—but suggesting it would be a bad idea for him to come in person. She scrolled up, and found the exact same text he’d just sent. Dated Monday, 6:52 AM. Just like this one was. Same date. Same time.
Heart beating more rapidly, she ran upstairs and checked the bed, then the floor next to it. There. Dane’s gun, on the floor. The one he’d given her out of the back of his car—she’d been holding it during the explosion. Shaking, she scrambled downstairs and made a furious drive to headquarters, arriving around seven thirty, having beaten most of the traffic.
She burst in and hurried to her office, rushing up to Rowna—who was in early. Something she never did on Tuesdays or Thursdays, when she drove carpool for her kids. If she was here …
“Rowna,” Lisa said.
Rowna kept typing.
“Rowna?” Lisa said, feeling something in her beginning to crack. “Please?”
The woman shook, then glanced at Lisa and started. “Commander! You should know better than to sneak up on an armed woman like that.” She said it with a smile, but Lisa’s nerves were fraying … and Rowna frowned soon after. “Commander?”
“The Goffrey case.”
“We’re close,” Rowna said. “Just need one of the Kim brothers to break. I’ll have a testimony on your desk the moment it happens. But you’ll have to persuade the DA this is enough. Good luck with that, Commander.”
Lisa stood, feeling a chill down to her bones. Nearby, none of the passing officers even looked at her—it was as if she were invisible. Rowna went back to her typing, and started again when she turned and saw Lisa there. Like she’d forgotten.
Davis walked in with coffee for his team. Monday was his day. The whiteboard had a perfect replica of Lisa’s notes from Saturday, the ones she’d erased on Tuesday night to outline their battle plan for the actual arrest. She glanced at her office. Glass was cracked in the door. They’d replaced that … on Wednesday …
Oh, heck …
“Dane,” she whispered. She put a hand on Rowna’s shoulder, which startled her again.
“Commander?” Rowna said. “Still worried about the case?”
“Dane,” Lisa said. “Is he in?”
“Commander … it’s before noon. What do you think?”
Lisa turned and walked out, faster with each step, until something even more unnerving happened. People started noticing her and turning toward her, smiling and waving, saying good morning. Because …
Because it was 7:48—around when she normally arrived at the office. Probably the exact time she’d arrived on Monday. The … other Monday. Now that she was supposed to be here, people suddenly began interacting with her like normal.
But this was anything but normal. She fled.
Back in her car, she drove to Dane’s apartment, which wasn’t too far—but there was more traffic on the road now, and people kept almost hitting her. It happened five times. After the fifth car swerved away and honked, Lisa parked and walked the last three blocks.
She had to try twice to get Tim, the beanpole of a doorman, to notice her. “Ah, Miss Lisa,” he eventually said.
“Dane,” she said, sweating. “Has he come out today?”
“Nope, Miss Lisa,” Tim said. “After all, it’s—”
“—Before noon. Yes, I know.”
She rushed past the broken elevator—the thing had been out of service for years—and bounded up the steps to the second floor. Breathing deeply, she forced herself to adopt a semblance of calm. Something had happened at that house, with the “device.” What was it the woman had said at the end? That they were going to send the entire building through … what? A hole of some sort?
Activating it hadn’t destroyed the city, fortunately, but something had happened. Something incredible, something mind-breakingly strange. Either that, or Lisa was going insane.
She used the spare key—she kept meaning to give it back—to get in. The place had a distinct scent; call it l’eau d’bachelor. Mingling odors of leftover Chinese, beer cans in the recycling, and dirty clothing piled in the tiny laundry room. Dane wasn’t slovenly—in her beat days, she’d seen slovenly, and beyond. He was average, at least for people who lived on their own and didn’t often have visitors.
She pushed open the bedroom door, and … he wasn’t there. Bed was messy, but that didn’t mean much. His phone was gone though, not in its charging stand—and more importantly, his gun was missing. He normally hung his sidearm in a holster from a peg by his bed. He only locked it away when someone was staying over, so if it was gone, it meant something.
Either he had come back and was having the same odd experiences as Lisa, but hadn’t gone into the office or tried to call her. Or … or he hadn’t arrived back here as she had.
Feeling confused, exhausted, and overwhelmed, Lisa sat quietly on the corner of his bed. Somehow, impossibly, that white light had sent her to her home three days into the past.
But where … or … or when … had it sent Dane?
Five
Sometime After Moment Zero
Dane groaned, feeling like the bits of gravel that got stuck between the grooves in the soles of combat boots. Blinking, he found himself on the hard floor, covered in dust. He sat up and sent it streaming off him, puffing up, floating lazily through afternoon light from a single dirty window.
… His window?
This was his bedroom, except the bookshelves had fallen from the walls, and their contents lay on the floor, where they seemed to be decomposing. Books half crumbled. A vase broken from the fall—but some pieces of it having become granulated.
He scrambled to his feet. That … seemed to be the remnants of his bed. Chunks of broken wood, sheets that tore like spiderwebs. He brushed off the dust, utterly dumbfounded, then spotted something in the debris at his feet. He fished out his gun, which was solid, and held the grip for support.
It was so quiet. Life downtown was never quiet. Occasional shouting was a sign all was well, and sirens were his nightly serenade. He stumbled to the window and leaned against the sill, and the wood there cracked beneath his left hand.
… The hell? he thought, raising his hand, and looked at the impressions he’d made in the sill. Then, he holstered his weapon and carefully used his sleeve to wipe the glass—which fell out of the window at his touch. Dane winced at the stark sound of it shattering below, like a gunshot in a quiet theater.
He didn’t dwell on that long, however, as …
Damn …
Along his street, the buildings were mostly still standing, but the cars lay in rusted heaps. Some in the center of the road, others parked, frozen as if they’d all stopped working at the same moment—then had been left for centuries to decay. Hollow windows. Stumps instead of trees. Fallen streetlights, leaving rust-red lines on the ground. And silence.
So much silence.
“What,” he whispered, “did that bomb do?”
He suddenly didn’t feel very safe on the second story of a building. Fortunately, his apartment was basically a concrete box—and though his carpet was tatters and dust, the floor was more solid. He walked to his door, tried to open it—but just pulled the doorknob off, the mechanism inside crumbling. Even the doorknob, which was brass, flaked a little—and he could scrape it with his fingernail.
That wasn’t normal decay. Brass lasted, like, forever, right? They still had Roman armor made from the stuff, didn’t they? He put his hand to his head, and pushed through the door—breaking it to splinters—then walked through his kitchen toward the door into the hallway. That one was already gone—blown inward, judging by the remains.
The lights weren’t working, of course, but unfortunately—after some rummaging in his rooms—he found that his flashlight was rusted out and no use. He crept back to the hallway outside, which was dark save for sunlight drilling through holes in the far wall. Like a shotgun pattern. He turned right and walked toward the stairs, the floor strong underfoot. Good old concrete and rebar. At the stairwell, he edged down a few steps, but the darkness here was absolute. He slipped his phone out of his cargo pocket … only to find a black screen with a blinking dead-battery sign.
Right. He zipped it back in, then—with a deep breath—carefully felt his way down, worried that at any moment he was going to step onto a patch of stairs that had crumbled away. Only one story, he told himself. Even if you fall, it won’t be that far. Besides, he had no other choice. The fire escape seemed to have rusted away, and the elevator never had worked, not that he’d trust it in this situation anyway.
Pulse pounding, he traversed the blackness, each step feeling like it was into some infinite pool of nothing. The only sound his frantically beating heart. He had trouble using his pulse to find the calm of a firing range—at least there, he could see his targets and execute on his training. Here … he just had to take step after step, hand flat against the concrete wall, tapping down with a toe. Each time, he felt he had to stretch too far before finally finding the next step.
It was pure relief when he spotted a sliver of light, and he probably took the last few steps too quickly in his haste to reach it. He emerged into the lobby, which was dim—but lit by sunlight from out front.
Hell, he thought. That was way, way too disturbing. He was in some kind of strange futuristic hellscape … and walking down a stairwell was what frightened him? He hurried through the dust-strewn lobby, then froze. Footprints. All over the floor here. For that much dust to gather … it felt like the lobby had been left desolate for … centuries?
Damn. Could it have been centuries?
Uneasy that someone had been here recently enough to leave those footprints, he slid his sidearm out, inspecting the shadowed lumps of furniture and the fallen front desk. Then, one of those lumps opened glowing white eyes.
Dane’s heart tried to extract itself from his chest as he backed up, cursing softly, and brought his gun to bear on the shadow, which stood up. It became an emaciated man in tattered remnants of clothing. Tall, with a comb-over …
“Tim?” Dane whispered, naming the doorman. “Hell, Tim. What happened to you? Why do you…”
Why do you have glowing eyes?
Tim focused on him, then whispered six chilling words. “I can feel your warmth, Dane.”
Dane took another step backward, but his heel hit the wall—the only thing behind him was that hollow stairwell. He kept his gun on Tim, who advanced.
“You’re still warm,” Tim rasped. “Share your heat. I need it.”
“Stop, Tim. Don’t move. Show me your hands.”
“I need it.”
“DON’T TAKE ANOTHER STEP!”
Those glowing eyes fixed on him, and something stretched out of Tim’s side: a shimmering figure, a screaming face and torso, transparent and white—as if trying to rip free. That … that was Mrs. Banler. The woman from three doors down.
Tim surged forward.
Dane fired, two shots, right at the man’s core—as per training.
They didn’t do anything.
Tim hit a moment later, slapping aside Dane’s gun with a strength those twigs of arms shouldn’t have been able to produce. Dane was shoved back against the wall, scrambling to reposition his gun with one hand while holding off Tim with the other. That … spirit … of Mrs. Banler kept trying to pull free, face a howling mask of pain, as Tim planted a hand around Dane’s neck.
The touch pulled something from Dane, sending a chill through his body. Like the same emotion of extreme alarm he’d felt jolt through him when he’d heard his mother was in the hospital, but magnified to the square. Dane grunted, and Tim’s eyes widened, glowing brighter.
Fortunately, that style of hold wasn’t a particularly effective one. Despite the mounting enervation, Dane found his MMA training. Holster the gun, grab under the arm, shift his weight, and …
Dane executed a throw, tossing Tim into the remnants of the front desk. The man rolled through splinters, grunting. Dane stumbled, breathing deeply. He reached for his gun again, but …
Damn. Two shots directly to the core hadn’t done a thing.
Tim screamed and scrambled to his feet. Dane went against training and grabbed Tim in hand-to-hand again, trying to put the man into a hold—which proved difficult. Not only did touching the man’s skin provoke that same terrible chilling sensation, but Tim was strong. Stronger than any of Dane’s instructors.
Tim broke the grip and shoved Dane against the wall. A kick to the chest at least sent Tim backward. He was strong, but he had the body weight of a scarecrow.
Not going to win a long fight against him regardless, Dane thought, noting how easily Tim jumped back up, while Dane already felt worn out. Dane glanced to the side, then grunted, pushed off the wall, and met Tim in the middle of the room, delivering a punch to his face. That last part had been mostly instinct, as Tim was open and the boxing part of Dane’s training wanted to punish—but it worked.
Two bullets hadn’t done a thing, but fist-to-face seemed to daze Tim. So Dane followed with two more, wishing he had gear, feeling cold at each touch. With a final move, Dane grabbed the doorman by one arm, then turned and heaved—tossing him straight through the wooden panel that blocked the elevator shaft. It had been left there by the people working on it, but was as frail as anything else, and Tim smashed right through it.
He howled and plunged into the basement, where the sound cut off abruptly.
Dane fell to his knees, puffing, feeling worse than any sparring match had left him. He was exposed kneeling there though, and there were stairs up from below. So he heaved to his feet and checked the elevator shaft.
Tim’s body lay twisted and broken at the bottom, visible by the cool white light coming off it, vaporizing slowly—the image of the screaming woman vanishing. Tim looked like … like he’d fallen straight on his head. Importantly, he didn’t get up.
“Well,” Dane said, hands on his knees, breathing deeply. “Finally got to use that elevator for something…” He turned about, checking the other shadows—but no white-eyed monstrosities waited for him. He looked down at Tim again, feeling sick. Not just from the touch and the fight, but … that was Tim, or some remnant of him. They’d gone out drinking together. Now …
Now the final bits of light faded from the man, the corpse succumbing completely to the darkness.
Fortunately, Dane felt his strength return—his body warming up. Whatever that touch had done to him didn’t seem permanent, and he felt almost normal—save for his tension from the fight—as he inched out of the building and checked the street in both directions. His car wasn’t in its parking spot. Hell, it was probably decomposing on the street near the house with the explosion.
