Ashes of Foreverland (33 page)

Pain hammered a beating rhythm across his forehead.

He went back to the soft sand of the dunes, sat down, and turned his face to the sun that was still high, still hot. He closed his eyes, letting the salty air fill him. The thrumming pain shrank until it was a spot between his eyes going boom-boom, boom-boom.

The smell of the ocean faded.

The water went silent.

And Danny opened his eyes to a bright light.

The Institute of Technological Research, New York City

A
thorn.

It was wedged between her eyes, probably no larger than a sliver. Felt like a railroad spike.

She blinked. Colors smeared across the landscape. She distinctly remembered seeing everything, being everything. She didn't need eyes. There was no separation. She was the city. She was everywhere.

The light
.

But now she lay in a sterile room, the smell of antiseptic mingled with the rank odor of wet fur and mucus.

She blinked again.

Pain flashed between her eyes. The sliver was a double image, a gleaming rod extending somewhere between her eyebrows. Each breath sent it deeper into her head.

She lifted her hand.

Fire ignited her elbow, muscles screeching along her forearm. Her fingers hovered above her face, careful not to bump the metal sliver, pinching it between finger and thumb.

A deep breath.

It slid from her like an icicle, tickling her inner ears, raking the back of her eyes. Tears pooled. She turned her head and let them roll over the bridge of her nose.

Another bed.

It was on a white stand. An old woman was sunk halfway into a green cushion. Her arms and legs were bent. Her hair as white as the stand. She was a mummy pulled from the belly of a pyramid, her flesh wrinkled like ancient leather. Her mouth was slightly open.

The beds hummed.

Roller pins massaged the back of Alex's legs, buttocks and shoulders. Pain radiated all over. It took three efforts to get up. She sat in a hunched position, catching her breath, waiting for strength to return...

When she remembered who she was, where she'd been.

What she did.

The room began to turn. It was too much—the dream, the reality—and the walls began to shrink. She wished for the peaceful light that swallowed her, that eternal existence where she rested after bringing back the old men and women.

After silencing the voices.

Peace.

She ended their suffering. She sat in the middle of the empty street, bemoaning her own fate, when the woman named Barb showed Alex her destiny. She was the one that would bring peace to the children.

You will balance the scales
, Barb told her.

Alex let one of her bare feet touch the floor. It was hard and cold. Pins and needles crawled up her leg as if struck with an aluminum post. She let the other one down and rested. There were tubes in her arms that burned when pulled out, clear liquid dripping on her toes.

Images were scattered over two computers.

She reached out and took one large step to the one nearest her. Data scrolled along the margins. A picture of her was set in the upper left-hand corner. None of the script made sense except one flashing word.

AWAKE.

She was no longer dreaming, back in her body, her flesh. It seemed so obvious she wasn't asleep, now; the density of her body was like a shrink-wrap of flesh, her identity contained within.

The image fractured into static. Data blazed over the screen and then went black. A single line appeared on a blue screen.

DATA CORRUPT.

Something broke.

Her reflection looked back from the blank screen—frizzy black hair, dark eyes. A red spot glistened on her forehead. She brushed clear liquid from the hole. It ached with each pulse.

The room resumed a slow spin.

She latched onto the computer and closed her eyes.
I'm awake now. I'm awake now.

The monitor nearest the old woman showed a different status. Alex stumbled over to it. The photo hardly matched the shriveled husk behind her. It was a younger version, a healthier time.

Patricia Ballard
, it said.

And the word below it brought the room to a standstill.

DECEASED.

She remembered her on the oversized monitors in Times Square, an image that more closely resembled the picture on the computer. But on the sidewalk, she was naked and old and hidden in the arms of her husband. Her husband, Tyler Ballard, the man she interviewed at the prison, was enraged.

That was in the dream. I interviewed him in the dream.

He had shouted at Alex, but the voices—the poor, distorted voices, the children that had been thrown into that gray static—filled the air, blotting out the crashing buildings that fell in plumes of ashes. Tyler was responsible. They both were.

Patricia wasn't angry. She was sad, resigned. Accepting.

She knew her fate. And when the Nowhere collapsed, she went willingly.

Of course, Alex hadn't meant to murder anyone. She only brought the ones responsible for the crimes she witnessed. Patricia and Tyler had kidnapped Alex like all those old men and women had abducted the children. The Ballards inserted Alex into her own dream. They wanted her to be the sleeping host that would keep Foreverland alive.

And they had already hurt so many.

But now there was silence. No more voices, no more pain. No ashes.

Machines began beeping on the other side of a curtain. Alex needed to leave. Her gown was loose, her feet bare. She needed to be less conspicuous and pulled open all the drawers and found a box of bandages. Gently, she covered the oozing hole in her head.

Her clothes were beneath her bed.

She ran past Coco, down an empty hall, all the offices open and vacant. She stopped at the front doors. Outside, it was dark, the streets empty. A light rain fell in slow motion.

Two cabs were waiting.

She pulled a hood over her head and ran. It was late, the city asleep. But the night was warm. Winter had ended. She could smell the green of new growth.

And no lilac.

Alex jumped in the first cab, lay back and watched the city pass by. The streets were slick and shiny. It was perfectly quiet, beautifully silent.

The voices no longer cried.

The Institute of Technological Research, New York City

T
hirst came in waves.

It was a pebble, a tiny stone that rose and fell. Cyn was reaching for something to stop it from rising and falling, rising and falling. But it wasn't a pebble, not something she could touch.

It throbbed.

Something beeped just out of reach, auditory spikes between valleys of silence, reminding her of a rooster that woke her after long, dead nights in the cabin.

Her eyelids cracked.

The light was harsh, slapping her into the cold tight ache of her body. She blinked back the fluorescent light and smacked at the thirst on her lips. Something was between her eyes.

She yanked it out too quickly, throwing a switch on an internal tuning fork. When the room stopped spinning—her head still singing—she was looking at a boy with red hair, sunk halfway into a green cushion. His arms and legs were slightly bent.

“Danny,” she croaked.

She sat on the edge of the strange bed, her feet dangling just above the floor. Her knees, exposed below the hem of the yellow gown, ached. So did her fingers and elbows. Most of all, her hand throbbed like her forehead. It was wrapped in gauze. She peeled off the tape, exposing a slice across the back of her hand, thick whiskers of black stitching poking out.

I cut myself so long ago. Why does it still look like that?

The time dilation.

Danny was right: time went much faster in Foreverland. If she still had stitches, that meant—

Her knees buckled when she leaped, catching herself before coming down hard. Pins and needles shot through her feet. She lowered herself to the floor and crawled. The curtain that separated their beds had been pulled aside. She passed an open cabinet and noticed the box of clothing as she pulled herself up to Danny's bed.

She grew faint.

Closing her eyes, she slowed her breath. It came back to her now—where they were, where they'd been.

This is real.

“Danny?” she whispered. “Wake up, Danny.”

His lips were parted; his breath shallow and warm. She pressed her ear to his chest.

Another computer beeped.

It was against the wall. Each step burned; the muscles and tendons contracted. Danny's photo was in the corner. The status flashed below it.

WAKING.

The cardiac monitor began to spike.

She stumbled back to his side and clawed at his shoulders, held his cheeks. His eyes moved beneath the eyelids.

“Come on, Danny.” She looked around, hoping no one would hear her, no idea if someone was just beyond the curtains. She just knew they needed to get out. “Wake up.”

If she pulled the needle too soon, would he be trapped in Foreverland? His eyes continued dancing. She squeezed his hand, fingers weaving together.

His eyes opened and stared into nothing.

“Danny?”

Tears welled up. She hovered over his face, stroking his cheeks. He blinked several times. Cyn pinched the needle and waited.

Waited for focus to return.

Waited for him to see her.

And when he did, when he blinked, when a tiny smile bent the corners of his mouth—

She yanked it out.

He bolted upright and couldn't catch his breath, huffing like he was dumped into a bucket of icy water.

“Danny.” She rubbed his arm. “We've got to go, Danny.”

He looked around, the pieces of reality falling in place too slowly. She pushed him up and pulled his legs over the edge.

“Easy.”

She held him while he slid his weight onto his feet. He stared down and looked at his hands, turning them over like she'd seen him do before, his barometers of reality.

“We're back, Danny. This is the skin.”

He was nodding, but still turning, needing to believe it, not just hear it. She retrieved the boxes of clothing while he sorted out this layer of reality.
Is he wondering the same thing I am, wondering if this is the last layer?

She was only wearing panties beneath the gown. Danny grabbed a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants, tenderly walking around the curtain. She quickly pulled on a pair of pants, tucking the gown inside them and throwing the hoodie over it. Danny was still dressing.

Cyn peeked around the opposite curtain. Patricia lay still on a bed. She didn't appear to be breathing. The other bed was empty.

The building was silent.

“Danny?” she whispered. “You all right?”

His bare feet weren't beneath the curtain. A dreaded wave settled in her chest. Cyn shuffled around the tables.

“Danny?” She tugged the plastic curtain.

Several curtains were pulled back. Danny was ten tables back, still dressed in the gown, clothes in hand. He stared at an older man, his beard shaggy, hair wild. There was a hole in his forehead, but no needle.

“It's him,” Danny said hollowly. “It's Reed.”

She thought Reed would be younger, then remembered that wasn't his original body. Reed migrated into Harold Ballard's body when they overthrew Foreverland and escaped the island.

Reed's original body was dead.
So is that one
.

“I thought he sent us the letters,” Cyn said.

“It was him. It had to be. It just...”

He started to sway, reality confusion tilting the floor. She let him take his time, but more computers were beginning to beep. They needed to go. They could figure this out later. Besides, it didn't matter who sent the letters.

“Danny, no. This way.”

He slid his bare feet over the floor, went to the other side of Reed and pulled back the curtain. An overhead light flickered to life.

Another bed, another body.

“Oh, man, no,” he moaned. “No, no, no...not you, Zin.”

Cyn read the name on the computer.
Eric Zinder.

He'd escaped the island with them. Now he was there, in the Institute, a hole in his head but no needle. He wasn't breathing.

There were more curtains.

Danny rushed through them, tearing them off their hooks, dropping them on the floor. The lights turned on one after another, bed after bed.

Body after body.

The first three were boys. She wasn't sure he recognized them all. The fourth one, though, was a dark-skinned woman.

Macy. She was helping them. She was working for the Ballards.

This time the floor tipped beneath Cyn's feet.

“They were searching for a host,” he said. “They were bringing us here, searching for a host.”

“She's gone.” Cyn looked back toward the front. “Alessandra's bed is empty.”

“Zin's the one that saved me,” he said. “Kept me from going insane on the island.”

“We have to go.” She clutched his elbow.

He resisted. “They lured us into the Institute, somehow put us back here and then, they manipulated our memories so that we didn't remember...we didn't know we were...”

The room was spinning on him. He hung onto the bed.

“Danny! We have to go!”

He tried to yank away from her.

“Don't do this. We can't help them now. We don't know what's happening, someone might come back, we're not supposed to be awake, they'll put us back in...we have to go now!”

Danny was shaking his head. He went back to Zin, took the boy's hand, and continued shaking his head as if he just couldn't take it anymore. No more layers.

No more lies.

Cyn gently wrapped her hand around his. Danny remained unfocused as she took the clothes wedged under his arm and began dressing him. She put her hands on his cheeks.

“We're alive, Danny. And we need to leave. Do you understand?”