Tailored Realities, page 47
Hand to his side, he prodded tenderly at the bandaged wound beneath his body armor. More, the room felt wrong. It took a moment to realize no light was peeking in from behind the blinds. Nor was his alarm clock on. He unslung his assault rifle, then stumbled to the window. Every streetlight was off, every home light dead.
People clogged the street below, milling about. As he pushed the blinds aside farther, they fell. The rod holding them up had snapped. Hell. He realized his fingers had made impressions in the wood of the windowsill. The carpet was starting to fall apart. It had already begun.
He hadn’t reached Moment Zero. He’d gone back, but not far enough. With trembling fingers, he took out his phone—and got a dead battery warning.
“You’re kidding me…” he said, then pulled out the power bank. Also dead. He’d been using his phone so much, he’d never gotten much of a charge—and when the power bank had run out, the phone had soon followed. Hell. It had probably been running on fumes that entire assault on the second facility.
He leaned back against the wall, feeling the footboard crack. They’d missed Moment Zero. But …
But this was a good sign, right? He’d jumped backward, instead of going farther forward. The room wasn’t nearly as decayed as last time, and none of those people below had glowing eyes. Lisa’s Yung had done something right. Maybe not quite enough of that something, but Dane wasn’t going to complain. He’d been surrounded mere moments ago. Now he had another chance.
He made his way into his closet—where he wasn’t worried about the flashlight drawing attention from outside. There, he took stock. Body armor and helmet. Phone, out of battery. Small first aid kit with painkillers. His AR, six fully loaded mags. His sidearm, two spare mags. Two flash-bangs, three flares.
He was well equipped, though he needed to get another power bank. That was his first priority—to establish communication with Lisa and the Yungs. Though, he considered, then turned his bracelet about. A few seconds later, it turned back the other way. He was still bound to Lisa, somewhere.
That gave him the push to get moving. He switched the flashlight to its dimmest setting, hooked it to the front of the AR, then loaded back up and made his way out. In the hallway, he caught Mrs. Banler (Caucasian, muumuu, body shape of a white woman who liked muumuus) peeking through her door with wide eyes.
“Dane?” she said. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he lied. “But best thing you can do is stay put for now. Um, lock your door. Don’t let anyone—especially not Tim—in.”
“I feel sick,” she said, letting the door open farther. “I was out when that explosion happened. The subway and buses stopped running, so I walked back here. But Melissa isn’t home, and my phone doesn’t work.”
Dane stood outside her door, feeling helpless. If she’d been on Fourth … she’d been outside the Dead Zones. But now she was in the center of a place where every other person would soon hunger for her soul …
It began with the people inside buildings, for some reason. Those who took a lesser dose changed faster. Yung had told him that the first changes had happened five hours or so after Lightbreak. People who had been indoors first, followed shortly thereafter by people who had been outside.
“Listen to me,” he said, taking her by the shoulder. “You need to get moving. Go to the country club. You know the one? Over off Seventeenth?”
She looked at him. And by the light of his flashlight, she seemed to understand. She gave him a nod.
“Good,” he said. “Come on. I’ll lead you down the stairs.”
“Melissa…”
“If I see Mel,” he said, “I’ll send her to the same place. On your way, don’t stop or talk to anyone. Just get there as fast as you can and wait. Please … trust me.”
He got her down the steps and across the lobby, then ran almost face-first into Tim, who was standing outside. Staring up at the stars. He’d always been spindly, but Dane could swear he was looking even more gaunt now.
“Dane?” Tim said, dazed.
“Hey, Tim,” Dane said, shoving Mrs. Banler to the side, getting her moving the right direction. “How are you feeling?”
“Cold,” Tim whispered. “Frighteningly cold. Like I have never … never known anything warm…” He fixated on Dane. “You’re warm though…”
Dane ran. As he reached the next intersection, he heard Mrs. Banler scream from the right. He turned and trained his rifle on two people who were holding her against a wall. One woman looked to him, and her eyes began to glow with a phantom white light.
He shot her. And the companion. The sounds drew hundreds of heads—people milling about on the street, suddenly aware of him. Sweating, he reached Mrs. Banler, who was down, trembling, barely able to move.
“D-Dane?” she asked. “W-why…”
“Hush,” he said, looking up. Other revenants were coming out of buildings nearby, though the people milling on the streets hadn’t changed yet.
Too many to shoot. Too many to … to …
What was he going to do? Run all the way to the country club carrying Mrs. Banler? He popped a flare and threw it into a building with a cry, hoping to divert some revenants—and some did stare that direction.
“You have to get up,” he said to Mrs. Banler.
She just lay there.
This is my beat. I have to … to …
He couldn’t help her. He … he couldn’t. Screams sounded from down another street, then more the other direction. People shouting for help. More and more revenants began appearing out of lobbies, corridors, homes. He realized … Mrs. Banler wouldn’t be the only person who had come home after Lightbreak. Some of those milling about would themselves change. Others could have been saved …
People yelling. And he … he couldn’t help them. Except by stopping the problem at its source.
Feeling helpless, hating himself, he left Mrs. Banler. She was piled on after he did so, three budding revenants going for her at once. She didn’t have the strength to scream.
I can’t save them one at a time, he thought. I have to do something for them all. That starts with finding a battery.
If things were already degrading here, he’d need to get out of the Dead Zone before locating an electronics store. Trusting his memory, he started running in the general direction of the country club. Fighting soon consumed everything, the revenants from the buildings attacking the soon-to-change ones on the streets, causing mass panic.
He ducked around the side of a building, listening to the fighting, and downed a revenant that came for him. Soon, however, things began to quiet. He peeked out, and saw something terrifying—many of the people who had been running from the revenants were now changing. The second wave, everyone who had been outside during Lightbreak.
Once they started to change, the revenants lost interest in them. All began to focus on the poor people who were unfortunate enough to have made their way home afterward—those who weren’t revenants, and weren’t going to change.
Dane turned and dashed down the alley. He found this terrible jog worse than the eerie silence of his last time awakening. Now he had to turn away from those calling for help. Had to be chased by their cries of pain, of abandonment, of loss.
He kept going, head lowered. All across the streets, people were changing, running, screaming. The chaos served him, however, as he was able to gun down any revenant who focused on him specifically. It was while he was taking aim at one such that he heard other shots in the near distance.
He pulled the trigger, then ran toward the sounds. Was someone else fighting back? Indeed, as Dane burst onto 17th—which he was certain was just outside the Dead Zone—he saw lights for the first time. A long line of car headlights and brake lights. People trying to get out of the city, but although this was a larger road (four lanes, with stoplights) it ran through a Dead Zone several miles upstream. All the cars in there would have stopped, so this gridlock was a death trap.
Someone had driven a car up on the curb nearby and was hiding behind it, firing down a cross street. Dane caught the man’s attention, then got permission to approach with a wave. Soon after, Dane crouched beside the guy (Black, short hair, looked like he lifted) who was firing shotgun slugs at glowing eyes as they approached up a side street.
“Assault rifle?” the guy asked, brightening as he took Dane in. “Hell, you have an extra?”
“Afraid not,” Dane said. “That gun of yours will work though, if you shoot for the heads.”
“I … remember that part.”
“Wait. Remember?”
“Yeah,” the fellow said. “Like a dream … Lots of white … These things were everywhere around me. Did I see the future somehow?”
This was new. “I’m Dane,” he said, holding out a hand.
“Malik,” the man replied, taking it. “You military?”
“Just your friendly neighborhood police officer,” Dane said, looking up over the car. White eyes, congregating that direction. And the path he’d come down? More and more, flooding this way. Looked like they’d finished feeding on the few people inside the Dead Zone who were either from outside or had taken longer to change.
Dane glanced behind him, along 17th, where those cars were stuck. He might be able to charge his phone in one of those. Except he needed a battery he could carry. Plus …
“This place,” Dane whispered, “is about to become a giant buffet for tens of thousands of revenants, Malik. Our best chance of stopping this is to travel in time and prevent it from ever happening. I can’t explain more right now, but are you willing to cover me as I try to find a way to power my phone? With it, I can get us backup.”
“My phone has juice,” Malik replied, “but I can’t get anyone to pick up.”
“Towers are all down,” Dane said, pulling him by the shoulder as the eyes from the side street started to approach in large groups. Like bobbing fireflies in the darkness.
Malik resisted being pulled away, but Dane got him moving after a moment—he likely realized that there were dozens of those sets of eyes. More. He joined Dane in running, while muttering under his breath, “I don’t like this. I don’t like any of it. It won’t happen … It can’t…”
Dane ran toward some people, holding aloft his badge. “Get moving toward the country club up the road!” he shouted. “If you see someone else, tell them! Knock on windows, and get people out of these cars. Pass the word! Anyone with glowing eyes is a danger! Avoid a fight if you can, but if you can’t, they’re only hurt by shots to the head!”
Most stared at him aghast, but others started running. A couple of people began passing his word. With Malik, he dashed toward a small electronics shop along the street. He saw people inside—normal ones. They’d pulled down the steel mesh over the windows, offering decent protection.
His badge got them to open the door. Malik explained to them about the country club while Dane found the portable power banks on one shelf, then ripped one open. When he plugged his phone in though, the charging indicator didn’t appear.
“When did you stock these?” he asked the family who ran the place.
“Sticker on the back says when,” the woman said, her accent thick. “Should we stay here in the shop or run?”
Dane recalled the ripped-open shops with rusted fronts that he’d seen on this very street two days from now. That mesh wouldn’t hold long. “You should run. I’m sorry. Both options are terrible, but they will break into this shop if you stay.”
The family ran. He hoped they’d make it, but once again he felt powerless.
No. His goal was to see that they didn’t have to make it. He wasn’t abandoning these people; he was focused on a better way to help. Like Lisa always said.
The back of the power bank’s packaging showed a sticker of when it had been shipped and shelved. A year ago? Hell. He raised others, checking the stickers until at last he found one from another brand that had been shelved only a few weeks ago.
Come on, he thought, ripping open the packaging and plugging in.
The charging indicator came on. He heaved out a sigh, then tucked phone and battery into places in his body armor. Give the phone a few minutes, and it should turn back on.
Screams and shouts outside. This little store was one of many identical downtown shops: the long, narrow type that were sometimes delis, sometimes convenience stores, sometimes electronics stores. Weren’t much bigger than long closets. Malik stood by the glass doors while Dane waited for the phone to charge.
“I hate that this happened,” Malik said.
“You and me both, buddy,” Dane said. “Can you tell me more of what you remember?”
“I remember Nazeem telling us we should search for a cop,” Malik said. “I remember … the experiment. I should have stopped it. We all knew something was wrong…”
Wait.
Oh … oh no.
“You’re one of her guards,” Dane whispered. “The ones who were near the explosion. That’s why you remember.”
“Used my bike, and rode for the police headquarters these last hours, hoping they could stop it. I felt … something this direction.” He turned toward Dane, his eyes glowing. “Your heat.”
Dane whipped out his firearm in a smooth motion, right as Malik raised his shotgun and fired. Dane got two shots in the revenant’s head as something struck him hard in the left leg, causing him to fall backward into the shelves.
Malik stumbled. Didn’t go down, but also didn’t fire again. “It can’t be stopped,” he whispered. “I’m going to turn into a monster. Took me a few hours longer than most, but it will happen.”
Two more shots, fired by Dane where he’d fallen, dropped the man. Dane groaned, left hand to his leg and the fresh wound there. Damn, damn, damn. He should have seen something was off with Malik. He tried to stand, but slipped and fell. So instead he crawled to the front of the store, double-checked that Malik was dead, then locked the deadbolt. There he applied a tourniquet to his leg—he’d been shot straight through the left thigh—using his bandages.
Outside, revenants had plenty to distract them; screaming people tried to run as more and more of the monsters poured out of the Dead Zone, howling and hungry for heat. Even with so many people around, some revenants turned toward his little shop, looking at him through the mesh. He thought of those ripped-open buildings. So he forced himself to his feet—foot—and limp-stumbled to the back of the shop, hoping to escape that way.
Something was already pounding on that door. Scratching. Howling. Revenants. Hell. He checked the deadbolt, then backed away, realizing that with that leg wound … he couldn’t fight his way through to escape.
He sank down beside a wall filled with phone cases, feeling numb. At least … at least the leg wound didn’t seem to hurt as much as it should have …
Dane’s phone buzzed. Alive? Lisa had sent.
He smiled. Alive, he replied. Though it’s not going as well as we hoped on this side.
Her call came a second later. “Dane,” she said, relieved. “When this is done, I am absolutely buying you a new phone.”
He chuckled. “Yung’s calculations were off, Li.”
“Let me guess. You’re a few hours after Moment Zero?”
“Yeah. It’s probably early morning. Sunrise isn’t here yet, but it’s getting lighter in the east already. Maybe … five AM?”
“That matches me,” she said. “I’m about five hours before the event. Appeared at the recital. I was hoping you arrived on time. I’m sorry.”
He nodded as the banging on the back door grew louder, and revenants at the front began rattling the steel lattice over the windows.
“What’s that noise?” Lisa asked.
He winced, then retrieved some more bandages from his pack and—by flashlight—tried to do something more to help his thigh. It looked horrible.
“I might have gotten myself into a pickle,” he said.
“Oh, hell. You only use stupid words like that when it’s bad.”
“Got hit in the leg. I won’t be running anywhere anytime soon. I’m trapped in a store on Seventeenth, with revenants trying to break in both doors. But if I need a new phone case, I’ve got a ton of choices.”
She fell silent, though he could hear her breathing on the line. He could practically feel her concern.
“Sorry, Li,” he said, closing his eyes to the howling and the pounding. The screams of people dying on the sidewalks or inside their cars. “I … don’t know how I’m getting out of this one. You might need to find a way to do this on your own.”
“We have to stop it in both timelines.”
“Maybe my Yung can do it. Find the me from your timeline to help you—”
“He’s dead, Dane. I just found the corpse. And Yung specifically mentioned that teleporting you was our best shot. I don’t know if he can do it.”
He breathed in and out, searching for some other solution. “What Yung did was effective. I jumped backward in time—simply not far enough. We need to try again. Get me to a facility, open a portal, with new calculations … Surely if Yung knows he was off by a few hours, he’ll know how to further change the numbers. Like calibrating a gun’s sights.”
“I’ve already talked to Past Yung. He feels like his calculations were correct, but you’re right. There has to be something he was missing. We could try again. If…”
If Dane could get moving. He managed to stand, with effort—but he could barely put any weight on the leg. Even that much shouldn’t have been possible. He grunted in pain, then forced himself to look at the revenants trying to break through the front door.
There were dozens or more piling around outside. He … probably wouldn’t have made it out there even unwounded. They seemed to think him a finer meal than the others.
“Lisa,” he whispered, “I really don’t think I can get out of here. Even if I fire every bullet I have, I’m going to be overrun. You’ll have to solve it without me.”
“No,” she said, adopting that tone of hers. “Dane, I’m going to fix this.”
