MirrorWorld (30 page)

Several Medusa-hands flail back, shrieking, missing tendrils of their own.

I’m close to puking in fright as the tendrils come for me again. I swing twice more, carving a path. I dive free, roll to my feet, and run. Halfway to the exit, I spot my machete on the floor. I scoop it up and return it to the scabbard on my back. As I reach the arched exit to the long circular path, I make a mistake and glance back.

Two of the Medusa-hands, eight eyes locked on me, send a wave of fear in my direction. I scream when it hits me and stumble to the floor. But they’re not the only thing frightening me. At the center of the chamber, the tendrils, some of them hacked in half, bleeding bright purple, rise out of the ground, pushed up from beneath by something larger.

I crush my eyes shut, pushing tears free, and fight the Dread’s fear-inducing effect. My feet slip over the dry floor as I peel out like some kind of Warner Bros. cartoon. Then I’m off, running up the slope. I open my eyes and find the path ahead clear.

The ground shakes. It’s subtle at first, but then powerful enough to stumble me. Fear and adrenaline drive me onward. With every staggering vibration, I gasp in fright and run faster. I’m not sure I’ve ever run so quickly, but the fear also makes me clumsy and more apt to flounder.

Whispers fill my head.

A chill runs up my spine, warning of unseen danger, urging me to turn around.

I look back not really expecting to find anything, but a Medusa-hands is right behind me, tentacles outstretched.

With a shout of surprise, I lash out, burying the trench knife in my right hand into its skull. The body falls slack, pulling me down to the ground. I try to pull the blade free, but it’s stuck. I slip my fingers out of the knuckles and stand, leaving the weapon behind.

Movement catches my attention. The tunnel behind me is alive with motion. An army of Medusa-hands writhes toward me, their external veins and eyes glowing in the semidarkness. All around me, the veins that fill this world pulse with frantic energy. I turn away from the Dread stampede before they can paralyze me with fear and run.

The slow incline frustrates me as the rumbling grows more violent. Whatever was buried in the chamber below is rising.

Coming for me.

A warm, wet breeze makes my cheeks sticky. The smell of rot tickles my nose.
Almost there.

Feeling a presence behind me and a chill on the nape of my neck, I draw the P229 and fire blindly. Shrieks fill the tunnel. I don’t know if I’m killing them or just injuring them, but they don’t catch me.

The entrance is just ahead.

A bull appears, its head twitching back and forth, no doubt summoned by whatever is still rising from the earth. Its eyes lock onto me, but before it can react, I act, driven by desperation and guided by instinct and skill. The remaining trench knife stabs up through the Dread’s chin and into its brain. I slip my fingers out of the oscillium knuckles and continue running, leaving the blade behind. The bull mewls and staggers away, not quite dead, but on its way.

I run out into the swampy clearing, slipping in the muck.

As the mob of Medusa-hands charges out behind me, I slip back into my reality and partially out of their grasp. But not completely. If they get their tendrils in my head, who knows what kind of thoughts they’ll put in there. If there is pain from the frequency shift, I don’t notice it. Fear, and its by-product, shock, can numb the mind from physical pain—I’ve heard.

Back on firm ground, adrenaline pumping, vision narrowed, I cover the hundred yards to the ATV in twelve seconds. I jump on the seat, turn the key, and rev the engine. One last peek into the mirror world reveals eight Medusa-hands, twenty yards back and closing fast. Behind them, the lobotomized bull staggers but can’t chase.

None of that fills me with as much trepidation as what happens next. The colony bursts open like an overfull aluminum-foil Jiffy Pop pouch. Massive flakes of the hivelike walls burst into the air. A giant limb, the size of a thick tree trunk, rises from the ground. Its foot, a triangular-shaped pad with long, thick, hooked claws descends to the ground. I can’t feel the impact in this dimension, but I can see the Medusa-hands stagger.

Having seen enough, I blink and see only the cemetery. I know the Dread are still there, coming for me, but not seeing them allows me to calm down. Focus.

I turn the ATV around and tear down the old road, back toward route 202. Despite my escape, return to reality, and speedy retreat, I can’t fight the building fear gripping my chest. Whatever that thing was rising out of the ground, it’s coming for me.
Dammit,
I think,
it’s coming for me.

38.

Trees blur past as I speed north on 202. I’ve got the needle pegged, but the speed now makes me nervous. I brake around the same corners I tore around on my previous journey. I stay locked in my lane. I think I should have brought a helmet. A
helmet
! In New Hampshire! Where almost nobody wears a damn helmet!

I am not a fan of fear.

It might be the most powerful force I’ve ever felt. It controls the body despite what the mind thinks. But the mind isn’t unaffected, either. I’m thinking things I never would have before. I’m considering driving north until the tank empties, stealing a car and driving until the world freezes. Part of me is a coward, and it shames me.

I don’t run away. It’s not who I am, fear or no fear.

I repeat the thought like a mantra, trying to keep myself on course for Neuro. They might be screwed, too, in which case I probably
will
head north and not look back. But they’ve also got weapons. And if I die, it won’t be alone.

Why do I care about dying alone?

In the past two years, the subject of my death, immediate or future, never crossed my mind. The topic just never held my interest. I knew it would happen. That life is finite. Quick, even. But now, thoughts of death, dying, and ceasing to exist—or not—threaten to undo me.

I swerve hard to the right as the road bends left, shouting in surprise and fright as I nearly cross over the lines and plow into a car. I cut hard back to the left, narrowly avoiding a tree. The driver lays on the horn, flipping me off as he speeds past. My heart beats hard. I slow the ATV. I was so wrapped up worrying about death that I nearly brought it about.

Moving at just twenty miles per hour, I catch my breath. I’m not sure why I’m winded. I’m sitting. The ATV is doing all the work, but I feel like I’m running a marathon.

Tires screech behind me. The high-pitched sound is followed by a sharp crash, the sound of metal striking wood.

It’s coming.

It’s still coming!

I gun the engine, speeding up the road, fear of what’s behind me overpowering my fear of crashing.

I see the police car up ahead. The officer is just now climbing out of the vehicle. He sees me. Goes for his gun. But he’s still dazed. Has trouble unclipping the weapon. As I zoom past, I shout, “Run!” But the officer just stands there, fighting for his weapon.

I’m just two hundred feet beyond the man when a shrill scream tears from his mouth. I glance back. The man convulses in the street, struck down by some unseen force.

It’s right there
.

I can’t see it. I
refuse
to see it. But I know it’s there. The giant Dread. Closing in on me, ready to unleash a fear powerful enough to destroy a man’s mind.

I increase the ATV’s speed. I have no choice now. Driving like a maniac—like I used to be—is my only option.

Be Crazy,
I tell myself.

I’m still that guy. I can still do the things he did. My skills, my knowledge—none of that has changed. I’m just afraid.

Despite the summertime warmth, a chill spreads over my body.
It’s close.
With a mile of road left to go and the long Neuro driveway, I’m not going to make it. Make it to what? If the Dread are inside the building, where can I hide?

Hide?

Dammit, I hate being afraid
. The emotion is intolerable.

The short hairs on my head stand a little taller. All over my body, hair attempts to stand on end. A chill shakes through my core and nearly sends me off the road. I have just seconds.

With a scream wrought by the nearness of the Dread and the action I’m about to take, I cut hard to the left, cross the yellow lines, and launch into the woods. If it wants to reach me, it’s going to be in the world between, where the trees will obscure me. And if it wants to enter this world and kill me physically, the forest will slow it down.

In theory. I’m basing all this on a day’s worth of experience and secondhand, untested knowledge provided by my previous self.

I swerve in and out of trees, making myself a hard target. There’s no sign that anything is behind me, and while the chill gripping my body has faded some, it’s still there. It’s just harder to notice since I require nearly all my attention to keep from slamming into a tree.

The trees thin ahead. I can see the sky. I’m approaching a clearing. Almost there …

A tree cracks behind me.

I glance back. Bark has been shredded from a pine.

The air shakes.

The giant Dread is pushing itself into our world. It doesn’t want to scare me to death, it wants to smear me on the forest floor.

A blur of motion pulls my attention to the right. A tree explodes, bark peppering my face. The tall evergreen topples over, falling diagonally toward me. I hunker down and speed onward, determined to beat the tree’s descent. The splintering wood and loud whoosh are hard to hear over the ATV’s whining engine, but I can feel the thing coming, just as surely as I can feel the Dread.

Pine needles slap my head. A small branch whips my scalp, opening a wound, but I manage to escape being struck by the tree’s girth.

I look back again, expecting to see the Dread or another falling tree, but the woods appear empty, save for the dust kicked up by the felled pine.

When I look forward, I scream.

Adrenaline surges again. I move faster than I have before, turning the ATV hard to the right. The crackle of the electrified fence tickles my ears as I narrowly avoid slamming straight into it. I hadn’t seen it up close before, but I now recognize the black, weaved metal for what it is. Oscillium. No matter which world the Dread is in, it’s going to hit that fence.

And then it does.

The fence rattles as it’s lifted out of the earth by an unseen force. Electricity cracks over its surface, surging into the Dread.

I slow and look back, peering into the mirror world.

My eyes widen. The Dread is there, still alive but tangled in the fence, shrieking in pain. It’s a blur of movement, giving me no clear view of itself beyond giant limbs. I shift my vision back to a more comfortable frequency without getting a good look at the thing. All I really know is that it’s the size of a monster-truck 18-wheeler, with wide, squat legs; really long, hooked claws; and streaks of glowing purple veins.

While the monster tries to free itself from the fence shooting electricity into its body, I speed north, using the chain link as a guide. A minute later, I speed out of the woods in front of the ruined security shack. I head past the broken gate, back onto smooth pavement. I twist the throttle as far as I can.

As I near the Neuro building, I let my vision slip into the world between. The black pyramid-shaped building is still under attack. Mothmen fill the sky. The centipede thing is smashing its head into the elevator doors. Bulls and pugs scurry around the parking lot, driving the mass of humanity, who are now pounding on the outside of the building, trying to get through the metal plates. To the right of the entrance, a group of people have laid out a collection of ladders. At the top, several men with hammers, bricks, and shovels attack one of the third-floor windows, punching a hole through its surface.

A respectable amount of fear punches me in the gut, tempting me to turn and run before I’m noticed. I let my vision see just the real world again. Ignorance really is bliss. Then I have an idea. It’s insane. It’s … crazy.

I’m still that man,
I tell myself.

No. I can’t do this.

Fuck off!
I think at this new inner voice.
Just shut up.

Fear, I realize, is like a little cartoon devil on your shoulder. You can listen to it, argue with it, or fight it like a son of a bitch.

Be Crazy. Just one more time.

I let go of the throttle, slowing the ATV. As the engine idles and the four-wheeler slows, I hear the chain-link fence rattling. I glance back in time to see the fence lift high up into the air and fall back down.

It’s through,
I realize, but don’t look at the mirror frequencies. I can’t. My will to fight is a skipped heartbeat away from becoming flight.

Turning back toward the building and the mob surrounding it, I draw my handgun, exchange the cartridge for a fresh one, and spin the sound suppressor off. Gun in hand, I steer toward the ladders and twist the throttle. As I near the back of the crowd, I fire the pistol. By the third shot, people are looking my way. When I point the weapon at them, they move. When I push the fear I’m feeling toward them, using my own Dread abilities, they shriek. The pain is nearly as intense as I remember it, but its effect on my mind is dulled because I’m so distracted by the danger approaching from behind. Fear, at least, is a powerful motivator for overcoming lesser discomfort. The effect moves up the ladder as I near. People dive away, some straight to the ground, others onto the angled building, where they slide away.

When the ATV strikes the ladders and climbs, the men up top see me coming and abandon ship. I’m sure the Dread bulls and pugs have seen me now, too, but since I haven’t been struck by a limb sliding between dimensions, I’ve made it past them before they could act.

The ATV rattles up the ladders, which form a perfect ramp. When it reaches the window, the tires squeal over the smooth surface for a moment but then catch. I lean forward as far as I can to keep from falling backward and rocket up the side of the forty-five-degree slanted wall.