Atmosphere (36 page)

Then, a shout. "Frank..."

Frank turned to see Hector approaching from the left, a wash of blood across his trench coat. "All hell broke loose and I had to get out. I'm sorry." He shot Jaimie a peculiar glance, the weary look on his face clearly conveying that his mind would accept just about anything at this time.

"Don't ask. Let's get out of here." Frank pulled Jaimie with him, her footsteps stagnant, tears perpetuating their storm on her face. "I would have done the same thing, Hect."

"Dear God, Frank—what is all of this?" Hector asked, nearly out of breath.

"There is no God." Then, "It was
them
."

Suddenly a rat appeared, squeaking, a wash of blood dappling its whiskers. It stopped a few feet from the three of them, its little beady eyes staring up at them, seemingly saying, "
Come near my warm meal and I'll bite your little human fingers off."

Frank pulled out his gun. "Fuck you."

This time he blew the rat away.

Nothing more was said. They paced as briskly as their fatigued legs would take them, over the tracks and across the train yard, watching as a horde of police vehicles raced in. Lights, sirens, shouts.

They reached the street where Hector's cruiser was still parked. Nearly collapsing from exhaustion, they leaned against the car and watched the indelible activity from this safer distance.

A series of explosions sounded, and then something incredible happened.

Atmosphere—the entire nightclub—rose up in the air, a great black pod with bolts of lightning darting about its surface, elevating to a miraculous height. Beneath, a multitude of lengthy tentacle-like strands trailed behind, ripping out of the ground, dragging up clumps of earth and cement until they all came free and slithered back into the base of the great floating system.

And then the great ship Atmosphere slowly inverted completely around until the six cylindrical spines faced downward towards the earth instead of skyward. The ends glowed a tremendous shade of luminous blue, and then in a flash of a moment it disappeared into the heavens, a great bullet of light, taking away all those still trapped within its domain.
 

F
rank sat at the desk in his bedroom, booted up his computer and waited until the monitor display gave him the okay to progress. In this time he thumbed through the
Daily News
and found a picture of the mayor inside, the caption bragging about the recent diminishing of New York's homeless population being greatly in part to the work of his appointed charities.

Frank grinned. Anything for a vote.

"Dad, I'm going out."

Frank looked up. Jaimie smiled, as beautiful as ever. "Be careful, hon."

"Of course. I'll be home by eight." She held up the cell phone Frank bought for her. "I'll call if I get held up."

"Have fun."

Jaimie stepped away, then stuck her head back through the door. "Dad?"

He looked up. "Back so soon?"

She smiled. "You've done nothing but play on that computer since you retired. I hope you're not working, because if you are I'll have to call Neil up and tell him to come over and help you out." The grin on her face told Frank that she had pretty much recovered from the memories of her—their—experience six months ago.

Frank rolled his eyes. "Get lost—"

"Unless you've got yourself an internet girlfriend..."

"I wish!" he shouted as she giggled and walked away.

He faced the computer and signed on to the internet. Once the squelch granted him access, he checked his e-mail.

Two Messages

He clicked on the first message:

Frank,

Haven't heard anything as of yet. My lead yesterday came up empty, so I'm sorry to say we still have to go on what we have at the moment, which isn't much but, it's still something. Talk to you later.

Hector

He clicked on message two:

FB,

We've got secondary reports coming in from our eyes in Omaha. Three kids now missing. Two separate witness accounts have given reports of what appear to be Harbingers. One of the sketches is now circulating the Omaha area. I've attached the file. I think this is our cue, FB. I think we ought to go to Omaha.

It would be nice to finally meet you, FB. Let me know what you think.

Ruefully yours,

[email protected]

Frank aimed the mouse pointer over the download button and pressed it.

The sketch came up.

Bald.

Sunglasses.

Frank opened his desk drawer and removed the black plastic bag inside. He unfolded it and took out the object that had greeted him so spookily on his living room floor when he arrived home that fateful night six months ago.

He kept it in a safe place, knowing that someday he would need it.

Frank saved the picture file on a disk, signed off, then phoned Hector, carefully placing the Atmosphere back into the bag.

"Hello?" Hector answered.

"Hect, we're going to Omaha."